Upcoming Events

Join the second Research Roundup exploring findings from the rapid-cycle Aligning Systems for Health research grantees. This session will feature:

• Quentin Moore, Communities Joined in Action
• Linda Kinney, Care Share Health Alliance
• Eva Allen, Urban Institute

Housing hardships are at a record high during the COVID-19 pandemic, with people experiencing loss of income, threat of eviction, delayed rent or mortgage payments, and utility cut-offs at increased rates, all of which have enormous health consequences for individuals and communities. Medical-Legal Partnership is hosting a four-part learning collaborative to explore the ways medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) can leverage the patient-centered legal services to implement clinic- and policy-level solutions to address the housing crisis.

• Wednesday, January 13 at 1 p.m. ET: An Introduction to Health, Housing, and the Role of MLPs

• Wednesday, January 27 at 1 p.m. ET: Applying the MLP Approach to Housing: Patients with Complex Needs

• Wednesday, February 10 at 1 p.m. ET: Applying the MLP Approach to Housing Issues for Children

• Wednesday, February 24 at 1 p.m. ET: Applying the MLP Approach to Housing: Evictions and City Ordinances

Low socioeconomic status and other social risk factors are linked to poor health outcomes and increased emergency department (ED) visits. Assessing and addressing these social risk factors can help improve these outcomes. However, connecting social services organizations addressing these risk factors with organizations providing medical services can be very challenging, due in part to systems that do not “talk” to each other.

Learn how implementing a web-based communication and care management platform supporting electronic communication between patient-centered medical homes and social service providers affects care for Medicaid patients. The research team will investigate the effects of the intervention on the identification and delivery of services to address social risks, quality of care, and unnecessary ED utilization.

Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the NORC Medicaid Managed Care Organization (MCO) Learning Hub is committed to providing information on ways to address health equity and transform health care with a focus on MCOs, consumer groups, state Medicaid leaders, and other stakeholders. In order to help meet the growing housing and social determinants of health needs of their members, MCOs are using different approaches to grow and support their investments in affordable housing.

In this webinar, representatives from UnitedHealthcare, CVS Health, and CareSource will discuss their housing investment goals, funding strategies and community partnerships for providing support to affordable housing residents. The presentations will be followed by a facilitated discussion and Q&A with the audience.

Learn about new research that evaluates the effectiveness of multi-sector Partnerships for Early Childhood Development (PECD) in maintaining social needs screening, referral, and service delivery for children during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. PECD is an initiative that provides funding and guidance to help pediatric primary care practices partner with community-based social service organizations to address the social needs of children and families.

Findings will identify how preexisting and emergent partnerships have changed in response to the pandemic, and how these changes have influenced the resiliency and sustainability of services needed by children and families. Researchers at New York University are collaborating with clinical and community partners in the PECD collaborative to complete the study.

This webinar features a study that study assesses the capacity of community social services organizations and their partners to meet the needs of new clients identified through emerging social determinants of health (SDOH) screening and referral tools used by medical providers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Researchers are using social network analysis, secondary data, and qualitative interviews to explore how clinical-community referral networks and referral patterns have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how these changes may affect service delivery and outcomes for community residents. Findings will guide efforts to strengthen the capacity of communities to meet the health and social needs of their residents.

Learn about a new study that evaluates the effectiveness of California’s Whole Person Care (WPC) initiative in coordinating health and social services for Medicaid beneficiaries with complex needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Projects underway in 26 counties engage Medicaid health plans, medical providers, mental health agencies, social service organizations, and public health agencies in collaborative models of care and payment that target specific population groups with complex needs in each county, including people experiencing homelessness, those transitioning from incarceration, and patients with multiple chronic medical conditions.

Using a quasi-experimental research design, researchers assess changes in collaborative community networks, service delivery patterns, and patient outcomes for program participants and matched comparison groups across 26 county-level projects before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study analyzes data from network surveys, Medicaid claims data, and key-informant interviews to assess program effectiveness from multiple perspectives. Researchers from the University of California-Los Angeles and University of California-Berkeley are collaborating with the California Department of Health Care Services to conduct the study.

As part of their work as a HRSA-funded National Training and Technical Assistance Partner (NTTAP), Medical-Legal Partnership published a toolkit that provides the health center community with information and resources to start, strengthen, and sustain a medical-legal partnership (MLP), and is hosting a 5-part webinar series to unpack the learnings from the toolkit.

• Thursday, March 11 at 1 p.m. ET: Creating Screening, Referral, and Service Delivery Workflows for a Medical-Legal Partnership

• Tuesday, April 6 at 1 p.m. ET: Moving Upstream to Address SDOH and Health Equity at a Policy Level

Promoting health equity alone is hard. But together, we can make health care work better for everyone. Join Accelerating Health Equity, a virtual conference March 16–18, 2021, hosted by AHA Community Health Improvement (ACHI) and Institute for Diversity and Health Equity (IFDHE).

For the first time in AHA’s history, ACHI and IFDHE will join forces to bring together community and population health professionals with diversity and inclusion leaders for a unique three-day experience dedicated to accelerating health equity and reimagining community health for the future. Through expert insights and national discussions, we will address challenges head on as we continue to combat a pandemic that affects the health and well-being of people differently.

This webinar features a new study that assesses the effectiveness of Continuum of Care homeless service networks (CoCs) in addressing health and social service needs created by the COVID-19 pandemic for populations experiencing homelessness. CoCs use cross-sectoral collaborations to integrate delivery of medical care, public health and social services for people experiencing homelessness.

This study uses case studies, national survey data of CoC networks, and secondary data analysis to compare previous performance to new evidence of the successes and challenges CoC homeless service networks experience during the pandemic. Researchers from the University of North Texas and the University of Utah will collaborate to complete the study. Findings will be used to understand the effects of the pandemic on CoC homeless service networks and the effectiveness of the networks in achieving health equity during COVID-19.