The health care sector continues to ponder its role in addressing social needs. Providers in clinical settings increasingly screen for social risk factors, but the extent of screening in these settings is not fully understood. To explore this issue, the Social Interventions Research and Evaluation Network (SIREN), an initiative of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), recently published a report synthesizing the peer-reviewed literature and knowledge gaps on social screening practices in health care. The report examines the prevalence of social screening in health care settings, validity of social screening tools, and patient and provider perspectives on social screening.

The Better Care Playbook spoke with Emilia De Marchis, MD, MAS, lead author of the SIREN report and assistant professor at the Department of Family and Community Medicine, UCSF, to learn about the state of social needs screening and implications for complex care.