Social Prescribing USA January 2023 Newsletter
Happy new year from the team at Social Prescribing USA!! We are excited about what will come in 2023 in the world of social prescribing! Here is a link to a recent article by Community of Practice member, Dr. Stephen Post, on making your new years resolutions that will stick and be beneficial through volunteering.
As we shared in our September newsletter, this newsletter aims to be the Social Prescribing USA Public Town Square - a central place to catalyze our growing movement. We’ll share insights from the network, philosophy on advancing the movement, and act as an idea factory of insights. This newsletter will be co-created with the brave leaders shaping this practice nationally.
Insights & Shout Outs
Harvard School of Public Health D (Design) Lab gathering - At the end of October, approximately 25 stakeholders gathered to do a design process with social prescribing. It was sponsored by the D-Lab, the University of Florida, and Social Prescribing USA. We spent two half-days doing a 10,000-foot view into all the potential parties involved in clinical care - from the patient to the social worker to the insurer to the government entities: what are their problems and their needs and what do they potentially gain from social prescribing. The final report is being developed and will provide important insight as we look to support social prescribing on our shores. We will share this when it is finalized! Some important insights include:
The critical nature of including health equity from the beginning
Including community in the co-design process
Social prescribing does not need to originate from our traditional prescribers - we can explore starting referrals from important members of our community e.g. your barber.
Community Information Exchanges (CIEs) - Several states, including Hawaii and Arizona, have created CEIs to centralize the information on community organizations in their regions. Social Prescribing USA is looking at how to support making this practice the standard of care in all 50 states and enabling cross-pollination between those who are doing this critical work.
Include religious groups as a source of SP, ethically + screening for flourishing: For perhaps half or more of the US population that does already positively self-identify with a religious tradition, religious communities are readily available, and there is pretty strong evidence that the effects of participation on health and well-being are quite profound. How can one explore this engagement in a culturally sensitive manner? See this article and consider using these screening questions: Shout out to Tyler Vanderweele at the Harvard Flourishing Project
A quick way to set up social prescribing: a patient social contact list: a division at Cleveland Clinic found a quick way to spin up a social prescribing program in just a few weeks. They create a “social prescribing list” where patients can put their names on the list, signaling their openness to being contacted to socialize. Patients can also search through their lists and proactively call other patients to connect. This approach worked because people are more inclined to reach out to someone already wanting and hoping to be called. Patients can self-manage their own activity.
Nudging social prescribing into existing national guidelines: do you sit on any panels for national guidelines on exercise, nutrition, family health, etc? If so, consider adding social prescribing as a byline. A few clinicians are doing this in order to seed discussions in their communities for larger implementations.
Health associations pivoting to address loneliness: there may be a huge opportunity for social prescribing to become a major initiative for different health associations. The American Heart Association, for instance, has seen a reduction in cigarette use, their incumbent health campaign, and are looking for issues that are now most pertinent to their related diseases.
Putting art prescriptions into the hands of prescribers: Chris Appleton founded Art Pharmacy in Atlanta and has enabled >150 prescribers to connect their patients to a network of arts-based resources in the community. Here is a link to 2 jobs that are available through Art Pharmacy.
SP USA’s grant with the California Health Care Foundation has just started, and we are working to build a feasibility model for social prescribing in a county health system in Northern California. We want to welcome two new amazing members of our grant team, Varshini Odayar and Abby Wu, who are undergrads at Harvard and are part of HUISP - Harvard Undergraduate Initiative for Social Prescribing. Both have a special connection to working with communities and community organizing.
Events
We just had a Volunteering Prescription Happy Hour on January 11th. It was a great conversation with leaders in the field of volunteerism, including author Dr. Stephen Post, Nancy Dzumak (who leads Greater Cleveland Volunteers), and author and Cleveland Clinic Chief Wellness Officer Emeritus Dr. Mike Roizen.
Jill Sonke and others will lead an upcoming Community of Practice in February or March (date TBD) with the topic of racial equity and social prescribing.
Research & Media
Media - Foundation for Social Connection - has a weekly report with relevant information to support Social Prescribing. Sign up here.
Media - Presentation on Social Prescribing in Parkinson’s Disease by Indu Subramanian, clinical professor at UCLA
Article - Psychological benefits of hobby engagement in older age: a longitudinal cross-country analysis of 93,263 older adults in 16 countries. D. Fancourt Et al. December 2022 Preprint (not yet published).
Presentations - In October and November, SP USA’s Co-founders Dan Morse and Dr. Alan Siegel, Dr. Tasha Golden, and others have presented as parts of panels about social prescribing at the National Organization for Arts in Health Annual Conference & the UF Center for Arts in Medicine’s Creating Healthy Communities: Advancing Health and Health Equity through Arts and Public Health Collaborations.
Media - Re-thinking new abilities after strokes: Dr. Rafal, a rehab doctor, shares powerful patient stories about new abilities people attain after strokes, often including new artistic endeavors on his Our Heart Speaks website.
Resource - Canada’s link worker framework - this framework is perhaps the most comprehensive single visual on all the steps and value adds a link worker can provide a patient.
Resource - Global Social Prescribing Alliance Playbook
Resource - A handbook for nature on Prescription to promote mental health - launch video and link to the handbook to download.
Call for Content & building our network
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