The Daily Dose
Social Determinants of Health: Breaking Down Barriers to Care
CDPHP has partnered with multiple community organizations to identify resources that can help remove barriers to care for those members who are grappling with issues like food insecurity, housing instability, and transportation. If your CDPHP patient needs this type of assistance, you can call our Single Source Referral Line at 1-888-942-3747, providing the patient’s name, date of birth, and social determinant of health issue, and we will connect the member to the appropriate local resource.
Listed below are some of the community resources we’ve identified, depending on the county in which your patients live. If they live outside the service area of these organizations, we will do our best to locate resources within the patient’s local community.
Resources for Food Insecurity
Among the area organizations that can help your patients address food insecurity are:
- Food Pantries for the Capital District, serving Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga, and Schenectady counties
- Capital Roots Veggie Mobile®, currently serving Albany, Schenectady, Cohoes, Troy, Rensselaer, Watervliet, and Mechanicville
- Food 4 Health Food Pantries, serving Schenectady County
- Fresh Food Collective, located in Washington County
- Food 4 Life, serving HIV-positive individuals
- Rolling Grocer 19, serving Hudson and Columbia counties
Housing Resources
The CDPHP Care Team can help your CDPHP patients connect with a range of housing support services, including transitional housing, rental subsidy, permanent supportive housing, and homelessness prevention assistance, including eviction prevention. Simply call our Single Source Referral Line at 1-888-942-3747.
Transportation Assistance for Medicaid Members
Free transportation services may be available for your Medicaid patients. Arrangements for transportation to medical appointments can be made via phone or online for members in the Capital Region and North Country.
Adult Educational Services
Education has been identified as a life-long social determinant of health, having been shown to have a positive impact on healthy behaviors and health outcomes. For one, it is a strong predictor of employment and income, both of which influence where patients live and whether they are able to afford health care. CDPHP is currently investigating community resources that can bolster our members’ level of educational achievement as a means of improving their health status.
Adele O'Connell About the Author
Adele joined CDPHP in 2004 as an internal communications and event specialist. She then spent eight years coordinating the company’s community relations and corporate events program, in which capacity she worked with a host of non-profit organizations and co-chaired the CDPHP annual Charity of Choice campaign. Currently, she is a communications specialist and coordinator of corporate member engagement and serves on the boards of two local charities. Prior to CDPHP, Adele served as a legislative assistant for a trade association and as an acquisitions and developmental editor, specializing in educational and medical publishing. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Rosemont College.
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