Social Care Navigation to Advance Health Equity

Catalog description

Unmet health related social needs (HRSN) – such as unstable housing, food insecurity, and lack of reliable transportation – exacerbate poor health. Health care organizations are increasingly screening patients for unmet HRSNs and collaborating with local community-based organizations (CBOs) to address patient social needs to deliver whole-person care and advance health equity. Critical to the screen-and-refer process are trained community members – patient social care navigators – who contact patients who screen positive for one or more HRSN and connect patients to local CBOs to meet those needs. In this course, students will develop and practice in the classroom the skills that navigators in the field use to work collaboratively with patients, participating clinician practices, community health workers, and not-for-profit organizations to provide social care navigation to patients to improve health outcomes and health equity of Tompkins County residents.