Pilot Study of Medical-Legal Partnership to Address Social and Legal Needs of Patients
Abstract
UNLABELLED: As a preliminary investigation of the effectiveness of medical-legal partnership in pediatrics, we conducted a 36-month prospective cohort study of the impact of clinic- and hospital-based legal services. We hypothesized that integration of legal services into pediatric settings would increase families' awareness of and access to legal and social services, decrease barriers to health care for children, and improve child health. METHODS: Health care providers referred families with legal or social needs to the Peninsula Family Advocacy Program (FAP). RESULTS: Fifty four families completed both baseline and six-month follow-up assessments. Comparison of follow-up with baseline demonstrated significantly increased proportions of families who utilized food and income supports and significantly decreased proportions of families avoiding health care due to lack of health insurance or concerns about cost. Two-thirds of respondents reported improved child health and well-being. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that adding an attorney to the medical team increases awareness of and access to social and legal services.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Studies of referral-based interventions reported moderate increases in resource use (pooled SMD = 0.54, 95% CI, 0.31-0.78).
“and resource use (pooled SMD = 0.54, 95% CI, 0.31-0.78).”
From Interventions Addressing Food Insecurity in Health Care Settings: A Systematic Review (2019) · cites this paper as [28]
Cites
Williams, D. R., Costa, M. V., Odunlami, A. O., & Mohammed, S. A. (2008) · Journal of Public Health Management and Practice · doi:10.1097/01.phh.0000338382.36695.42 · Cited by 489 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Gottlieb, L. M., Hessler, D., Long, D., Laves, E., Burns, A. R., Amaya, A., Sweeney, P., Schudel, C., & Adler, N. E. (2016) · JAMA Pediatrics · doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2016.2521 · Cited by 419 · see citing works
Interventions Addressing Food Insecurity in Health Care Settings: A Systematic Review
De Marchis, E. H., Torres, J. M., Benesch, T., Fichtenberg, C., Allen, I. E., Whitaker, E. M., & Gottlieb, L. M. (2019) · The Annals of Family Medicine · doi:10.1370/afm.2412 · Cited by 195 · see citing works
Medical-Legal Strategies to Improve Infant Health Care: A Randomized Trial
Sege, R., Preer, G., Morton, S. J., Cabral, H., Morakinyo, O., Lee, V., Abreu, C., De Vos, E., & Kaplan-Sanoff, M. (2015) · Pediatrics · doi:10.1542/peds.2014-2955 · Cited by 126 · see citing works
Screening for Poverty and Poverty-Related Social Determinants of Health
Berman, R. S., Patel, M. R., Belamarich, P. F., & Gross, R. S. (2018) · Pediatrics In Review · doi:10.1542/pir.2017-0123 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
- Authors
- Weintraub, D., Rodgers, M. A., Botcheva, L., Loeb, A., Knight, R., Ortega, K., Heymach, B., Sandel, M., & Huffman, L.
- Affiliations
- Lucile Packard Children's Hospital (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved
- Publisher
- Project MUSE
- Published
- 2010-05
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 2A
- Pages
- 157-168
- ISSN
- 1049-2089 (ISSN-L)
- 1548-6869
- OpenAlex
- W1492457459
- Cited by
- 111
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 70.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Law › Legal Education and Practice Innovations
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Child and Adolescent Health
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Homelessness and Social Issues
- Keywords
- medical-legal partnerships, pediatric care, family advocacy, social determinants of health, legal services, social services, food aid, income support, health insurance, health care access, child health, barriers to care
- MeSH terms
- California, Child, Child Advocacy, Child Health Services, Child Welfare, Health Services Accessibility, Health Services Needs and Demand, Humans, Insurance, Health, Interprofessional Relations, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Pediatrics, Pilot Projects, Prospective Studies, Referral and Consultation, Social Support, Lawyers
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
