Visible Network Labs is excited to share that Dr. Danielle Varda will be a presenter at the SIREN Annual Meeting, focused on achieving racial health equity in social care. Her session, “Tailoring Social Needs and Social Support Screeners for Young Adults,” will focus on our recent work with the Annie E. Casey to capture how young people think about social support using our social health screening tool, PARTNERme. The session takes place on September 27th at 11:10 AM.

The Social Interventions Research and Evaluation Network (SIREN) is hosting this free, virtual, multi-day conference Sept 15, Sept 27, and Oct 12 (each day from 9-12pm PT) to explore how social care research can become a stronger tool for advancing racial health equity. Presentation and discussion topics will include discrimination in health and social care; the use of equity assessments and equity outcomes in social care research; and strategies for centering lived experience expertise in social care design and evaluation. For details and to register, click here.

By racial health equity, we mean that people of all racial and ethnic groups have a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible and that we have repaired, healed, and accounted for the injustices and oppression inflicted on people of color. We are focusing this meeting on racial health equity because of the pervasiveness and centrality of racism, and anti-Black racism in particular. We consider discrimination and oppression based on immigration status, language, country of origin, religion and other factors that are strongly linked to race and ethnicity to be dimensions of racism. However, this focus on racial equity is not meant to diminish or ignore inequities related to other factors such as gender identity, sexual orientation, physical ability, among others. 

By social care, we mean all the ways in which professionals attached to health care institutions work to take into account and help address patients’ social needs (e.g., the ability to afford healthy foods, safe housing, and reliable transportation). This includes efforts to identify patients’ social needs, help patients access resources that address their needs, and tailor patients’ medical care based on social needs. Social care also includes efforts by health care professionals and organizations to address social conditions at the community-level, e.g., through grants, investments, local hiring and procurement, and policy-change efforts. 

Our team is honored to be part of this program and share our network science and social care expertise with the community. We hope to see you there!