How Social Spending Affects Health Outcomes
Aug 17, 2016, 9:00 AM, Posted by Elizabeth H. Bradley, Lauren A. Taylor
The United States spends more on health care than any other developed nation, yet a recent study suggests social services could have a greater impact on health outcomes.
In a blog post for The New York Times, Dr. Dhruv Khullar, a resident physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, detailed important—and importantly nonmedical—barriers to health that he had witnessed in his patients: a man who couldn’t fathom worrying about his blood pressure when he needed to find food and a place to sleep, a diabetic without reliable access to a refrigerator to store insulin, a mother fretting that mold and cockroaches in her apartment were exacerbating her son’s asthma. Medical care might be necessary for these patients. But that care alone is unlikely to be sufficient.