Findings from Harvard Medical School in Managed Care Reported (Associations Between Different Self-reported Social Risks and Neighborhood-level Resources In Medicaid Patients): Managed Care

2022 AUG 01 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Current study results on Managed Care have been published. According to news reporting originating from Boston, Massachusetts, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Adverse social conditions are a key contributor to health disparities. Improved understanding of how social risk factors interact with each other and with neighborhood characteristics may inform efforts to reduce health disparities.”

Funders for this research include Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, NIH National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Harvard Medical School, “Data: A questionnaire of 29,281 patients was collected through the enrollment of Medicaid beneficiaries in a large Northern California integrated health care delivery system between May 2016 and February 2020. Exposures: Living in the least resourced quartile of neighborhoods as measured by a census-tract level Neighborhood Deprivation Index score. Five self-reported social risk factors: financial need, food insecurity, housing barriers, transportation barriers, and functional limitations. Nearly half (42.0%) of patients reported at least 1 social risk factor; 22.4% reported 2 or more. Mean correlation coefficient between social risk factors was rho=0.30. Multivariable logistic models controlling for age, race/ethnicity, sex, count of chronic conditions, and insurance source estimated that living in the least resourced neighborhoods was associated with greater odds of food insecurity (adjusted odds ratio=1.07, 95% confidence interval: 1.00-1.13) and transportation barriers (adjusted odds ratio=1.20, 95% confidence interval: 1.11-1.30), but not financial stress, housing barriers, or functional limitations. Conclusions and Relevance: We found that among 5 commonly associated social risk factors, Medicaid patients in a large Northern California health system typically reported only a single factor and that these factors did not correlate strongly with each other. We found only modestly greater social risk reported by patients in the least resourced neighborhoods.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “These results suggest that individual-level interventions should be targeted to specific needs whereas community-level interventions may be similarly important across diverse neighborhoods.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Associations Between Different Self-reported Social Risks and Neighborhood-level Resources In Medicaid Patients. Medical Care, 2022;60(8):563-569. Medical Care can be contacted at: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Two Commerce Sq, 2001 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19103, USA. (Lippincott Williams and Wilkins - www.lww.com; Medical Care - http://journals.lww.com/lww-medicalcare/pages/default.aspx)

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Chris Miller-Rosales, Harvard Medical School, Dept. of Health Care Policy, 180 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA 02115, United States. Additional authors for this research include Jodi McCloskey, Connie S. Uratsu, Richard W. Grant, James D. Ralston and Elizabeth A. Bayliss.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1097/MLR.0000000000001735. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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