Overcoming Obstacles To Health

1770 Words8 Pages
The Overlooked Connection between Social Needs and Good Health summary of findings from a survey of america’s physicians December 2011 health care’s blind side Summary of FINDINGS A national survey reveals that physicians believe unmet social needs are directly leading to worse health for Americans — and that patients’ social needs are as important to address as their medical conditions. Medical care alone cannot help people achieve and maintain good health if they do not have enough to eat, live in a dilapidated apartment without heat or are unemployed. Physicians report that their patients frequently express health concerns caused by unmet social needs beyond their control. This is health care’s blind side: Within the current…show more content…
“The case for more active policy attention to health promotion.” Health Affairs, 2002. 2 Braveman and Egerter. Overcoming Obstacles to Health. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2008. kushel, gupta, gee and Haas. “Housing Instability and Food Insecurity as Barriers to Health care Among Low-Income Americans.” Journal of General Internal Medicine, 2006. 3 4 cook et al. “Food Insecurity Is Associated with Adverse Health Outcomes among Human Infants and Toddlers.” The Journal of Nutrition, 2004. 5 center for Workforce Studies. The Complexities of Physician Supply and Demand: Projections Through 2025. American Association of Medical colleges, 2008. * For purposes of this survey, low-income communities are defined as those in which at least 50 percent of patients belong to a household with an annual income of less than $50,000. ** This number was calculated by dividing the average number of prescriptions physicians would write for social services if able (26) by the sum of the average number of prescriptions physicians currently write (or medications they dispense) in a week (150) and the average number physicians would write if able (26). 9 robert wood johnson…show more content…
The sample source was the American Medical Association Masterfile. The sample was pulled randomly to meet specific criteria, such as specialty, region, age and gender. Invitation letters were mailed with a password-protected link, so that each link could only be used once. A reminder was also sent about a week into interviewing. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to be invited to participate, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. The participation rate for this survey was 5 percent. In order to be representative of primary care physicians and pediatricians, results were weighted as needed for region, age and gender. The targets were based off of demographic information in the American Medical Association Masterfile. All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error that are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with non-response, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words “margin of error” as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible

More about Overcoming Obstacles To Health

Open Document