Abstract
BackgroundUndergraduate and graduate medical education often includes the social determinants of health, but questions remain regarding how best to ensure that trainees become empowered to take action on the social determinants of health in their future practice. The authors conducted a systematic review to better define the impact that educational programs centered on medical legal partnerships have on trainees’ knowledge, attitudes and future practice.The authors sourced data from PubMed, Web of Science, Index to Legal Periodicals, LegalTrac, Google Scholar, Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, SocINDEX, SSRN, and Proquest Social Sciences. Selected studies included those centered on Medical Legal Partnerships in undergraduate or graduate medical education and that measured outcomes of the participating trainees. Two abstractors independently extracted information about the study population, setting, design, intervention and outcomes.ResultsSix out of 483 studies met the inclusion criteria. One study highlighted four different MLPs, thus nine total MLP programs were included. Trainees included medical students as well as interns and residents from pediatrics, family medicine and internal medicine. Interventions ranged from didactic sessions, to advocacy projects, to hands-on community-based learning, to poverty simulation trainings. Benefits to trainees were wide in scope but all programs showed improvements in participants’ understanding, comfort, confidence, and/or abilities in identifying and intervening on the social determinants of health in their patients.ConclusionAs medical schools and residency programs are increasingly considering how to effectively teach trainees to understand and address the social determinants of health, the findings in this systematic review suggest that inclusion of Medical Legal Partnerships into training programs is an effective approach.
Highlights
Undergraduate and graduate medical education often includes the social determinants of health, but questions remain regarding how best to ensure that trainees become empowered to take action on the social determinants of health in their future practice
The social determinants of health (SDoH), such as substandard housing, psychosocial stress, and access & affordability of healthcare, are established risk factors that lead to worse health outcomes in disadvantaged populations [1]
To teach the SDoH effectively such that future doctors are empowered to take action on the SDoH in their future practice, educators will need to consider these barriers in their approach to SDoH training
Summary
Undergraduate and graduate medical education often includes the social determinants of health, but questions remain regarding how best to ensure that trainees become empowered to take action on the social determinants of health in their future practice. The authors conducted a systematic review to better define the impact that educational programs centered on medical legal partnerships have on trainees’ knowledge, attitudes and future practice. The authors sourced data from PubMed, Web of Science, Index to Legal Periodicals, LegalTrac, Google Scholar, Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, SocINDEX, SSRN, and Proquest Social Sciences. Selected studies included those centered on Medical Legal Partnerships in undergraduate or graduate medical education and that measured outcomes of the participating trainees. Two abstractors independently extracted information about the study population, setting, design, intervention and outcomes
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