Rural Family Physicians' Ability to Address Patients' Social Drivers of Health Needs

Rural populations fare worse than their metropolitan counterparts in social drivers of health, including access to services, economic opportunity, intimate partner violence, life expectancy and poverty. Very little research exists to describe the ability of rural primary care physicians to address patients' nonmedical social drivers of health needs. This project made use of a unique dataset collected among family physicians nationally in 2017 through 2019.

Publications

• Addressing Social Determinants of Health in Family Medicine Practices
  Journal Article
  Rural and Underserved Health Research Center
  Date: 10/2023
  This study evaluated physician, practice, and community characteristics as health care system elements to determine the ability of a primary care practice to address social determinants of health.