Social Determinants of Health Guide to Social Needs Screening Tool and Resources

Date of Review: December 2019

This resource is a document containing an SDOH screening tool created by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) which describes how, who and where the tool can be administered as well as how to interpret results. There is some background information about the tool itself and the validated screening questions of the five-core health-related social need which include housing, food, transportation, utilities, and personal safety, as well as the additional needs of employment, education, child care, and financial strain. This AAFP resource also provides additional resources to address identified SDOH needs from the screening forms in patients and communities and embedded links to resources as well as well as annotated resource section to implement a patient action. This resource is intended for health professionals and support staff to be implemented in both clinical and community settings. This resource is part of the AAFP’s The EveryONE Project which is a toolkit intended for effort to advance health equity in all communities. This toolkit can help in a multitude of ways. family physicians address social determinants of health in their practices and communities, to improve the lives of their patients. It can easily be used in clinical settings and the toolkit which is linked to the document (https://www.aafp.org/patient-care/social-determinants-of-health/everyone-project/eop-tools.html#patients) provides a variety of training materials to educate health professionals and their teams. — Ashti Doobay-Persaud, MD, NCEAS