Alayne Adams, Associate Professor, Maddie Leggatt, MSc student in Family Medicine, and social prescription team members were recently awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Connections Grant to support ongoing work promoting Social Prescription in local primary care and community settings.
It is well established that a spectrum of political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental factors shape health and well-being. While community-based social services have important health benefits for patients with unmet social needs, referral pathways from primary care are weak or unsupported. Social prescribing is one promising approach to address this challenge.
Social prescription in primary care practice
A typical social prescribing pathway entails the identification of a patient with an unmet non-medical need or goal by a healthcare professional; a referral to a community link worker; the co-development of a "prescription" for a community service/resource by the link worker and patient; and the successful linkage of the patient to the prescribed service/resource. This social prescription project will promote the operationalization of social prescription in primary care practice and community-based settings through research and dialogue in C么te-des-Neiges鈥揘otre-Dame-de-Gr芒ce and Parc Extension neighborhoods.
As part of the project, outreach with primary care providers, community-based organizations, and patient partners will be organized to introduce social prescription, explore current practices, and introduce Click SOCIAL, a novel social prescription platform that helps identify needed services. A series of deliberative dialogues with primary care providers, community-based organizations, and patient partners will generate priority actions to create a locally adapted ecosystem for social prescription. In a final workshop, key stakeholders will co-create and champion a feasible action plan to move the social prescription agenda forward.
Feel free to reach out to alayne.adams [at] mcgill.ca (Alayne Adams) or madison.leggatt [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Madison Leggatt) for details regarding planned outreach and participation in this exciting initiative.
Congratulations to the whole team!