Digital Commons Network^™

Can The Hunger Vital Sign™ Act As A Prescreen For Other Social Needs?, Richard Sheward, Charlotte Bruce, Deborah A. Frank, Sharon Coleman, Stephanie Ettinger De Cuba, Blair Robinson, Diana B. Cutts

Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk

Background: Addressing health-related social needs is essential for improving health and reducing longstanding disparities. However, barriers to screening – including clinician and patient time burden of screening for multiple social needs – limit identification. To address this concern and promote the uptake of screening by clinicians, it is important that screening tools effectively and efficiently identify social needs’ presence and absence among patients.

Objective: This study evaluated whether a validated and widely implemented 2-question food insecurity screening tool, the Hunger Vital Sign™ (HVS™), has adequate negative predictive value to serve as a pre-screen for other social needs.

Methods: In 2007-2015, …

Changing The Trajectory Of Substance Use And Depression Beyond The Formative Years: The Virginia Screening, Brief Intervention, & Referral To Treatment Project, Lora Peppard, Patty Ferssizidis, Jody Kamon, Alissa Wong, Richard Single

Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk

Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) is an important secondary prevention strategy to address substance use and depression risk beginning in youth and continuing across the lifespan. Ten healthcare settings in Virginia implemented the SBIRT model between 2017 and 2020. A total of 65,315 participants ages 18 and older were universally screened to determine the severity of their substance use and depression and offered a risk-informed intervention. 12.7 percent of individuals endorsed some level of risky substance use and 4.5 percent screened positive for depression overall (11.1 percent in the outpatient setting). 10 percent of all brief intervention …