Predicting Social Determinants of Health

It has been estimated that 80% of a person’s health is a direct result of social factors such as access to transportation or nutritional food sources. When a person lacks transportation or lives in a food desert, there is a greater probability that they suffer from poor health. The existence of social needs has been recognized as a reliable predictor of having chronic diseases or requiring high costing medical services. Being able to identify these social needs has been shown to increase the quality of life for both the patient and their communities. My capstone project is a system that predicts the probability of a patient experiencing food insecurity. Patients who are predicted to be highly likely of having that need are identified and communicated to their care manager for additional assessment to determine if there truly is a need. If so, they are directed to resources to alleviate that need.