Social Emergency Medicine
About Us
We conduct research at the intersection of social context and emergency care, focusing on developing, testing, and implementing innovative interventions to address the adverse social determinants of health. In collaboration with our communities, we rigorously evaluate these interventions to drive tangible improvements in health equity. Additionally, we provide training for residents and fellows to critically examine the structural factors influencing patients’ lived experiences, while equipping them with a comprehensive understanding of the institutional and population health frameworks within which we operate.
Current Research
What we do
- The MOLAR Study: Mapping Oral Health and Local Area Resources
- MEDS: Medication Education for Dosing Safety
Our Publications
What we’ve done
- Discover recently published articles from us and our partners across the social emergency medicine research team
SDoH
Screener
What you can do
- Explore our new social determinants of health (SDoH) screening tool designed to simplify assessment of unmet needs
What are Social Determinants of Health?
Social determinants of health (SDoH) are the environmental factors that influence health outcomes. They are the conditions in which people are born, work, and live, and are connected to larger forces and systems such as economic, political, and social polices that shape daily life. Social determinants of health have a major impact on people’s health and well-being as well as health inequities – the unequal and avoidable differences in health between populations.
The goal of our work is to identify and address adverse SDoH in an efficient and scalable way to address social needs, reduce disparities in care, and improve health outcomes. We have ongoing additional work around understanding neighborhood and spatial risk, evaluating and developing directories of community resources, and identification of social risk and social need.
Department of Emergency Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School