RISE looks at recent headlines concerning social determinants of health (SDoH).
HHS announces $3.7B investment to address energy costs as SDoH
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), announced this week it has provided nearly $3.7 billion in Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) funding to support households with home energy costs to ensure low-income families stay safe and healthy through the winter.
The funding is the latest initiative from LIHEAP, which has now released a total investment of nearly $22 billion toward lowering household energy costs.
“LIHEAP is critical to lowering energy costs for families, and protecting the health and safety of households, particularly those that include older adults, individuals with disabilities, and young children,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra in a statement. “With additional support from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, this essential program will help households keep the heat on in the winter and stay cool in the summer while still being able to afford other essentials necessary for good health like food, medicine, and housing.”
In addition to the funding announcement, ACF has launched a LIHEAP eligibility tool. The “user-friendly” tool allows households to provide basic information, such as income and household size, to easily identify whether they are eligible for the LIHEAP assistance.
The ACF’s Office of Community Services has also released a LIHEAP heating assistance toolkit, which includes outreach materials, videos, and winter safety resources to help families stay safe and warm during cold weather.
“LIHEAP is a lifeline for households across the country who need support with their home energy bills,” ACF Acting Assistant Secretary Jeff Hild said in the announcement. “Last year alone LIHEAP served more than six million households. By helping to alleviate the burden of home energy costs, LIHEAP advances ACF’s mission to promote the economic and social well-being of children, families, and communities.”
Survey gauges Americans’ comfort with SDoH data sharing
The majority of American’s are comfortable with their health care provider sharing information about their social needs with other providers, for treatment purposes, according to survey data from the Office of the National Coordinator.
The Health Information National Trends Survey, for the first time in 2022, asked individuals about their comfort level with three social needs data types being shared—food, housing, and transportation. Overall, about sixty percent of participants said they were comfortable with the data sharing when it related to treatment purposes.
“Understanding individuals’ comfort with the sharing of their social needs data has implications for patient preferences related to the capture and exchange of potentially patient-sensitive information, particularly with ongoing efforts to increase the collection and use of data on patients’ health related social needs,” ONC said in a blog post.
Latest data shows US continues to perform worse on health care quality than other countries
Measures of long-term health outcomes, treatment outcomes, patient safety, and patient experience indicate the U.S. health system falls short compared to other countries of similar wealth based on total GDP and GDP per capita, according to the latest data from the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker, an online information hub dedicated to monitoring and assessing the performance of the U.S. health system.
The research finds that the United States performs worse in life expectancy, maternal mortality, congestive heart failure hospital admissions, obstetric trauma with instrument, medication or treatment areas, and patient experiences of not getting care due to costs. However, the U.S. performs similarly to or better than peer nations in other measures of treatment outcomes, including mortality rates within 30 days of acute hospital treatment and post-operative sepsis.