Developing Cross-Sector Referral Networks to Address Social Determinants of Health: Results from a Multi-Year Evaluation
Developing cross-sector referral networks can be an effective way of addressing community-level health and well-being outcomes. Social network analyses (SNA) were conducted on 40 individual community care networks active between 2018-2022 to derive composite network typology scores using five SNA metrics. Standardized Health Factor data from Countyhealthrankings.org were matched to each of the 44 networks and their geographical catchment areas. Multiple linear regressions were conducted to test whether the type of network uniquely predicted health factor outcomes while controlling for the age of the network. Results found that more centralized and cohesive community care networks uniquely predicted better than average physical environment and social-economic outcomes. The maturity of the network had contradictory effects on social-economic (positive) and clinical care (negative) outcomes at the community level. These results have practical implications for how to optimizing community care networks to achieve population-level outcomes and theoretical implications for typological classification of networks and its relationship to change over time.
