Pursuing a Cross-Sector Approach to Advance Child Health Equity.

Cross-sector partnerships are essential to ensure a safe and effective system of care for children, their caregivers, and communities. A "system of care" should have a well-defined population, vision, and measures shared by health care and community stakeholders, and an efficient modality for tracking progress toward better, more equitable outcomes. Effective partnerships could be clinically integrated, built atop coordinated awareness and assistance, and community-connected opportunities for networked learning. As opportunities for partnership continue to be uncovered, it will be vital to broadly assess their impact, using clinical and nonclinical metrics.

A Data-Driven Approach to Optimizing Medical-Legal Partnership Performance and Joint Advocacy.

Medical-legal partnerships connect legal advocates to healthcare providers and settings. Maintaining effectiveness of medical-legal partnerships and consistently identifying opportunities for innovation and adaptation takes intentionality and effort. In this paper, we discuss ways in which our use of data and quality improvement methods have facilitated advocacy at both patient (client) and population levels as we collectively pursue better, more equitable outcomes.

A Framework for Cross-Sector Partnerships to Address Childhood Adversity and Improve Life Course Health.

Childhood adversity and its structural causes drive lifelong and intergenerational inequities in health and well-being. Health care systems increasingly understand the influence of childhood adversity on health outcomes but cannot treat these deep and complex issues alone. Cross-sector partnerships, which integrate health care, food support, legal, housing, and financial services among others, are becoming increasingly recognized as effective approaches address health inequities. What principles should guide the design of cross-sector partnerships that address childhood adversity and promote Life Course Health Development (LCHD)? The complex effects of childhood adversity on health development are explained by LCHD concepts, which serve as the foundation for a cross-sector partnership that optimizes lifelong health. We review the evolution of cross-sector partnerships in health care to inform the development of an LCHD-informed partnership framework geared to address childhood adversity and LCHD. This framework outlines guiding principles to direct partnerships toward life course-oriented action: (1) proactive, developmental, and longitudinal investment; (2) integration and codesign of care networks; (3) collective, community and systemic impact; and (4) equity in praxis and outcomes. Additionally, the framework articulates foundational structures necessary for implementation: (1) a shared cross-sector theory of change; (2) relational structures enabling shared leadership, trust, and learning; (3) linked data and communication platforms; and (4) alternative funding models for shared savings and prospective investment. The LCHD-informed cross-sector partnership framework presented here can be a guide for the design and implementation of cross-sector partnerships that effectively address childhood adversity and advance health equity through individual-, family-, community-, and system-level intervention.

Reductions In Hospitalizations Among Children Referred To A Primary Care-Based Medical-Legal Partnership.

Medical-legal partnerships integrate legal advocates into health care settings to address health-related social needs. However, their effect on health outcomes is unclear. This retrospective cohort study examined the effect of referral to a medical-legal partnership on hospitalization rates among urban, low-income children in Greater Cincinnati, Ohio, between 2012 and 2017. We compared 2,203 children referred to a pediatric primary care-based medical-legal partnership with 100 randomly selected control cohorts drawn from 34,235 children seen concurrently but not referred. We found that the median predicted hospitalization rate for children in the year after referral was 37.9 percent lower if children received the legal intervention than if they did not. We suspect that this decrease in hospitalizations was driven by the ability of legal advocates to address acute legal needs (for example, threat of eviction and public benefit denial) and, when possible, to confront root causes of ill health (for example, unhealthy housing conditions). Interventions such as those provided through a medical-legal partnership may be important components of integrated, value-based service delivery models.

A Community Resource Liaison Embedded in Pediatric Primary Care Mitigates Social Risks through Identification and Connection.

BACKGROUND: Children living in poverty frequently experience health-related social needs. The pediatric primary care setting is a common touchpoint, allowing for risk identification and resource connection. METHODS: This is an evaluation of the effect of a community resource liaison's (CRL) first year embedded in a pediatric primary care center, 8/1/2015-7/31/2016. Primary outcomes include needs identified and connections made. Secondary outcomes include preventive service completion and acute utilization. RESULTS: During the study, the CRL interacted with 236 primary care patients, addressing 395 identified needs. The most common needs concerned housing and utilities, public benefits, and food/resource insecurity. The CRL patients were significantly more likely than non-CRL patients to be connected with on-site legal advocates, social workers, and an infant food insecurity program. There was no significant relationship with preventive service completion or use. CONCLUSION: A CRL embedded within a pediatric primary care center enhanced risk identification and resource connection.

Pediatricians Contributing to Poverty Reduction Through Clinical-Community Partnership and Collective Action: A Narrative Review.

Poverty affects child health and well-being in short- and long-term ways, directly and indirectly influencing a range of health outcomes through linked social and environmental challenges. Given these links, pediatricians have long advocated for poverty reduction in both clinical settings and society. Pediatricians and others who work in pediatric settings are well-suited to address poverty given frequent touchpoints with children and families and the trust that develops over repeated encounters. Many pediatricians also recognize the need for cross-sector engagement, mobilization, and innovation in building larger collaborative efforts to combat the harmful effects of poverty. A range of methods, like co-design, community organizing, and community-engaged quality improvement, are necessary to achieve measurable progress. Moreover, advancing meaningful representation and inclusion of those from underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups will augment efforts to address poverty within and equity across communities. Such methods promote and strengthen key clinical-community partnerships poised to address poverty's upstream root causes and its harmful consequences downstream. This article focuses on those clinical-community intersections and cross-sector, multi-disciplinary programs like Medical-Legal Partnerships, Medical-Financial Partnerships, clinic-based food pantries, and embedded behavioral health services. Such programs and partnerships increase access to services difficult for children living in poverty to obtain. Partnerships can also broaden to include community-wide learning networks and asset-building coalitions, poised to accelerate meaningful change. Pediatricians and allied professionals can play an active role; they can convene, catalyze, partner, and mobilize to create solutions designed to mitigate the harmful effects of poverty on child health.

Voter Participation is Associated with Child Health Outcomes at the Population Level.

Civic engagement, including voting, has been linked to health outcomes for adults. Here, we found that census tract-level voter participation rates are significantly associated with pediatric inpatient bed-day rates even after adjustment for socioeconomic deprivation. Such links suggest that promotion of voting participation could be warranted in healthcare settings.

Opportunities for and Barriers to Using Smartphones for Health Education Among Families at an Urban Primary Care Clinic.

Mobile technology is omnipresent in society. Though studies suggest increased rates of smartphone accessibility, current access and barriers to smartphone usage at urban primary care clinics remains unclear. A self-administered survey was distributed to families presenting to an urban, underserved pediatric primary care clinic in spring 2017. Survey questions related to smartphone ownership and barriers to usage. A total of 273 parents completed the survey. Ninety-five percent of participants owned a smartphone. Fifty-eight percent of participants identified no barriers to smartphone usage. Among those who identified one or more barriers (n = 108), difficulties were primarily related to Wi-Fi access (46%), available phone memory (45%), existing phone data (28%), and discomfort with technology (11%). The majority of parents (59%) were interested in using a smartphone to learn about their child's health. In conclusion, there is opportunity to transform health education utilizing mobile devices, though disparities to usage should be considered.

Transformation of a Pediatric Primary Care Waiting Room: Creating a Bridge to Community Resources.

Introduction Children and families living in poverty frequently encounter social risks that significantly affect their health and well-being. Physicians' near universal access to at-risk children and their parents presents opportunities to address social risks, but time constraints frequently interfere. We sought to redesign our waiting room to create a clinic-to-community bridge and evaluate the impact of that redesign on family-centered outcomes. Methods We conducted a pre-post study of a waiting room redesign at a large, academic pediatric primary care center. Design experts sought input about an optimal waiting room from families, community partners and medical providers. Family caregivers were surveyed before and after redesign regarding perceived availability of help with social needs and access to community resources, and hospitality and feelings of stress. Pre-post differences were assessed using the Chi square or Wilcoxon rank sum test. Results The key redesign concepts that emerged included linkages to community organizations, a welcoming environment, and positive distractions for children. A total of 313 caregiver surveys were completed (pre-160; post-153). Compared to pre-redesign, caregivers surveyed post-redesign were significantly more likely to perceive the waiting room as a place to obtain help connecting to community resources and find information about clinical and educational resources (both p < 0.05). Families were also significantly more likely to report the waiting room as more welcoming and relaxing, with sufficient privacy and space (all p < 0.05). Discussion Waiting rooms, typically a place of wasted time and space, can be redesigned to enhance families' engagement and connection to community resources.

A Road Map to Address the Social Determinants of Health Through Community Collaboration.

Economic, environmental, and psychosocial needs are common and wide-ranging among families cared for in primary care settings. Still, pediatric care delivery models are not set up to systematically address these fundamental risks to health. We offer a roadmap to help structure primary care approaches to these needs through the development of comprehensive and effective collaborations between the primary care setting and community partners. We use Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a well-recognized conceptual model to organize, prioritize, and determine appropriate interventions that can be adapted to both small and large practices. Specifically, collaborations with community organizations expert in addressing issues commonly encountered in primary care centers can be designed and executed in a phased manner: (1) build the case for action through a family-centered risk assessment, (2) organize and prioritize risks and interventions, (3) develop and sustain interventions, and (4) operationalize interventions in the clinical setting. This phased approach to collaboration also includes shared vision, codeveloped plans for implementation and evaluation, resource alignment, joint reflection and adaptation, and shared decisions regarding next steps. Training, electronic health record integration, refinement by using quality improvement methods, and innovative use of clinical space are important components that may be useful in a variety of clinical settings. Successful examples highlight how clinical-community partnerships can help to systematically address a hierarchy of needs for children and families. Pediatricians and community partners can collaborate to improve the well-being of at-risk children by leveraging their respective strengths and shared vision for healthy families.

Forging a pediatric primary care-community partnership to support food-insecure families.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Academic primary care clinics often care for children from underserved populations affected by food insecurity. Clinical-community collaborations could help mitigate such risk. We sought to design, implement, refine, and evaluate Keeping Infants Nourished and Developing (KIND), a collaborative intervention focused on food-insecure families with infants. METHODS: Pediatricians and community collaborators codeveloped processes to link food-insecure families with infants to supplementary infant formula, educational materials, and clinic and community resources. Intervention evaluation was done prospectively by using time-series analysis and descriptive statistics to characterize and enumerate those served by KIND during its first 2 years. Analyses assessed demographic, clinical, and social risk outcomes, including completion of preventive services and referral to social work or our medical-legal partnership. Comparisons were made between those receiving and not receiving KIND by using χ2 statistics. RESULTS: During the 2-year study period, 1042 families with infants received KIND. Recipients were more likely than nonrecipients to have completed a lead test and developmental screen (both P < .001), and they were more likely to have received a full set of well-infant visits by 14 months (42.0% vs. 28.7%; P < .0001). Those receiving KIND also were significantly more likely to have been referred to social work (29.2% vs. 17.6%; P < .0001) or the medical-legal partnership (14.8% vs. 5.7%; P < .0001). Weight-for-length at 9 months did not statistically differ between groups. CONCLUSIONS: A clinical-community collaborative enabled pediatric providers to address influential social determinants of health. This food insecurity-focused intervention was associated with improved preventive care outcomes for the infants served.

Doctors and lawyers collaborating to HeLP children--outcomes from a successful partnership between professions.

BACKGROUND: Clear associations exist between socioeconomic risks and health, and these risks are often amenable to legal interventions. METHODS: This is a case study of an implementation of a medical-legal partnership (MLP) in three pediatric primary care centers that serve a predominantly high-risk population. Referral circumstances and outcomes over the first three years are described. RESULTS: During the three-year study period, 1,808 MLP referrals were made for 1,614 patients by all levels of provider. Those referred were more likely to have asthma (p<.0001) and developmental delay/behavioral disorder (p<.0001) than the general clinic population. Housing (37%) and income/health benefit (33%) problems were the most common reasons for referral. Referrals led to 1,742 (89%) positive legal outcomes affecting nearly 6,000 cohabitating children and adults and translating into nearly $200,000 in recovered back benefits. CONCLUSION: Successful MLP implementation enabled pediatric providers to address social determinants of health potentially improving health and reducing disparities.