title: Medical-legal partnerships: transforming primary care by addressing the legal needs of vulnerable populations.
abstract: Health care is undermined when patients don't receive the benefit of laws intended to address social determinants of health, such as housing and food. Medical-legal partnerships, which now exist in more than 200 clinical sites in the United States, integrate lawyers into health care to address legal problems that create and perpetuate poor health. This paper describes how such medical-legal partnerships can change clinical systems--for example, by adding legal form letters to electronic health records to help low-income patients rectify substandard housing conditions. We recommend the integration of medical-legal partnerships into federal health care programs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA. megan.sandel@gmail.com
authors.forename: Megan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sandel
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hansen
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kahn
authors.forename: Ellen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lawton
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Paul
authors.forename: Victoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Parker
authors.forename: Samantha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Morton
authors.forename: Barry
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zuckerman
mesh_terms: D000046:Academic Medical Centers; D003376:Counseling; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric; D006801:Humans; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D033241:Lawyers; D017146:Models, Organizational; D010317:Partnership Practice / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010344:Patient Advocacy / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D035862:Vulnerable Populations