18145: Association of Environment and Organizational Factors and Collaboration to Address Social Drivers (session 25471)

Upstream social and non-medical factors, known as social determinants of health (SDOH), significantly impact an individual and community’s health status. Since addressing SDOH is not a hospital’s core competency, the preferred way to address SDOH and achieve health equity in a community is through a multi-sector collaborative effort. The purpose of this study was to explore the association between a hospital’s environmental and organizational factors and the reported levels of collaboration with its community partners in addressing SDOH. The conceptual framework used in this study included the Interorganizational Collaboration Theory (IOC) and Contingency Theory. The study results found an association between environmental factors that determine the county healthy outcomes rank and the number of community collaborations to address SDOH. Hospitals were less likely to engage in community collaborations for every rank decrease in county healthy outcomes ranking. For every rank decrease in county healthy outcomes ranking, the relative risk for hospitals involved in 1-5 community collaborations versus no collaborations decreased by a factor of 0.995 (RRR: 0.995, p: 0.014). For every rank decrease in county healthy outcomes ranking, the relative risk for hospitals engaged in 6-10 community collaborations versus no collaboration decreased by a factor of 0.995% (RRR:0.995, p: 0.011). For every rank decrease in the county healthy outcomes ranking, the relative risk of hospitals engaging in 11-16 community collaboration versus no collaboration decreased by a factor of 0.993 (RRR: 0.993, p: 0.001). The study results found a partial association between the operating margin and the reported number of community collaborations. The results of this study highlight the need to ensure that adequate resources are dedicated to healthcare organizations located in counties with lower health rankings. This support is vital to enabling hospitals to collaborate effectively with other community organizations, address SDOH, and improve health outcomes in these communities.

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