PUBPOL 5650 - Social Care Navigation to Advance Health Equity

Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only (no audit).

Permission of instructor required. Recommended prerequisite: PUBPOL 5280. Co-meets with PUBPOL 3650.

J. Carmalt, G. Zielinski.

Unmet health related social needs (HRSN) – such as unstable housing, food insecurity, and lack of reliable transportation – exacerbate poor health. Health care organizations are increasingly screening patients for unmet HRSNs and collaborating with local community-based organizations (CBOs) to address patient social needs to deliver whole-person care and advance health equity. Critical to the screen-and-refer process are trained community members – patient social care navigators – who contact patients who screen positive for one or more HRSN and connect patients to local CBOs to meet those needs. This Engaged Cornell course collaborates with Cayuga Health to train students in social care navigation to connect patients to local CBOs. Students receive training in HRSN screening best practices, integrating social screening into electronic health records, care coordination and care delivery documentation, database management, cultural competency, and principles of complex care management such as meeting patients where they are, trust-building, and understanding complex interactions between structural racism, poverty, social drivers of health, and health inequities.

Outcome 1: Define social determinants of health (SDOH) and demonstrate understanding of how they shape health outcomes.

Outcome 2: Analyze promising policies and practices nationally and locally to address health inequities by integrating clinical and social care (e.g. social needs screening and referral infrastructure, data interoperability systems, reimbursement for social care services through health insurance).

Outcome 3: Define principles of trauma-informed and strengths-based approaches to care and actively put those principles into practice during role playing.

Outcome 4: Identify and propose solutions to barriers to care such as stigma, structural racism, access, lack of medical system integration, etc.

Outcome 5: Work collaboratively with our engaged course partner, Cayuga Health, to become proficient in patient social navigation.