Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Nov 18;11(1):48.
doi: 10.1186/s40352-023-00246-5.

How legal problems are conceptualized and measured in healthcare settings: a systematic review

Joshua R Vest  1   2 , Rachel J Hinrichs  3 , Heidi Hosler  4
Affiliations

How legal problems are conceptualized and measured in healthcare settings: a systematic review

Joshua R Vest et al. Health Justice. .

Abstract

Legal problems encompass issues requiring resolution through the justice system. This social risk factor creates barriers in accessing services and increases risk of poor health outcomes. A systematic review of the peer-reviewed English-language health literature following the PRISMA guidelines sought to answer the question, how has the concept of patients' "legal problems" been operationalized in healthcare settings? Eligible articles reported the measurement or screening of individuals for legal problems in a United States healthcare or clinical setting. We abstracted the prevalence of legal problems, characteristics of the sampled population, and which concepts were included. 58 studies reported a total of 82 different measurements of legal problems. 56.8% of measures reflected a single concept (e.g., incarcerated only). The rest of the measures reflected two or more concepts within a single reported measure (e.g., incarcerations and arrests). Among all measures, the concept of incarceration or being imprisoned appeared the most frequently (57%). The mean of the reported legal problems was 26%. The literature indicates that legal concepts, however operationalized, are very common among patients. The variation in measurement definitions and approaches indicates the potential difficulties for organizations seeking to address these challenges.

Keywords: Measurement; Screening; Social determinants of health.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Joshua Vest is a founder and equity holder in Uppstroms, a technology company.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Search strategy to identify healthcare's operationalization of legal problems
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Alemi F, Avramovic S, Renshaw KD, Kanchi R, Schwartz M. Relative accuracy of social and medical determinants of Suicide in electronic health records. Health Services Research. 2020;55(Suppl 2):833–840. doi: 10.1111/1475-6773.13540. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. American Academy of Family Physicians. Incarceration and Health: A Family Medicine Perspective (2021). https://www.aafp.org/about/policies/all/incarceration.html. Accessed 19 Aug 2023.
    1. Anderson A, Esenwein SV, Spaulding A, Druss B. Involvement in the criminal justice system among attendees of an urban mental health center. Health Justice. 2015;3:1–5. doi: 10.1186/s40352-015-0017-3. - DOI
    1. Andermann A. Screening for social determinants of health in clinical care: Moving from the margins to the mainstream. Public Health Reviews. 2018;39:19. doi: 10.1186/s40985-018-0094-7. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aronson ID, Cleland CM, Perlman DC, Rajan S, Sun W, Ferraris C, et al. MOBILE SCREENING TO IDENTIFY AND FOLLOW-UP WITH HIGH RISK, HIV NEGATIVE YOUTH. J Mob Technol Med. 2016;5:9–18. doi: 10.7309/jmtm.5.1.3. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources