Increasing Access to Health Care through Legal Partnerships: New Article in Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal

As the United States embarks on a new era of health care reform, many organizations are finding new opportunities for innovative partnerships and collaborations across sectors to reduce health disparities. The authors of an article in the latest issue of the Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal (Issue 3, Spring 2010) seized this opportunity to publish “Medical-Legal Partnership|Philadelphia: Meeting Basic Needs and Reducing Health Disparities by Integrating Legal Services into the Healthcare Setting.” Co-written by Ellen Lawton of Medical Legal Partnerships, Ben Beck-Coon of Legal Clinic for the Disabled, Inc. and of Medical Legal Partnerships and Abby Fung of Root Cause, the article describes the medical-legal partnership model and the benefits of joint legal and medical intervention to fight the spread of poverty and disease in low-income populations. As health disparities and the wealth gap in the country continue to grow, an opportunity for a holistic approach for nonprofits, healthcare leaders, and innovative law firms to reduce these inequalities is emerging—particularly for the one in six households in the United States currently living in poverty. This article stresses the importance of expanding interdisciplinary efforts in healthcare to center on socioeconomic status and other social determinants that strongly effect the progression of illness and disease, since “less than 15 percent of preventable mortality is attributable to medical care alone.”

Access the article in Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal here.