Social Services As Mental Health ‘Prescription’

The integration of social services into the traditional notion of health care in the United States has been a slow-moving trend, but it’s gained some momentum in recent years via the concept of social determinants of health. The social determinants of health are environmental conditions — economic stability, education, social and community contexts, health and health care, and neighborhood and built environment — that affect a wide range of health and quality-of-life outcomes (see The Social Service Factor In The Health Care Value Equation).

All this leads to a single question: Can we simply “prescribe” these social services . . .