Our Work

OUR GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The overarching goal of the Andrew Levitt Center for Social Emergency Medicine is to expand our understanding of the interplay of social forces and health in the emergency department and to provide immediate and long-lasting improvements to promote health equity throughout the United States.

We believe that a deeper understanding of social determinants of health is necessary to refine emergency medicine and emergency medical services to better respond to changes in population health. This understanding also allows for the development of interventions to reduce health crises, improvement of population health and decompression of burdened emergency departments.

OBJECTIVE 1: Social Emergency Medicine Research

The main objective of the Levitt center is to conduct research that focuses on how medical issues and social determinants bind emergency care to patients and their communitites. Our research program explores many aspects of this intersection, including but not limited to:

Measurable changes in health status associated with changes in patients’ social environments

The effects of social epiphenomena on emergency department disease patterns, including both upstream effects of changes in the medical care system (e.g., the primary care crisis) and downstream effects of social practices on the medical care system, such as the effect of racial segregation on violent injury risk.

The effects of changes in EMS governance, ownership, and regulation on access to emergency care, response times, outcomes, etc.

The effect of community-based prevention efforts on ED use

OBJECTIVE 2: DISSEMINATE INTERVENTIONS INFORMED BY RESEARCH.

An integral part of our mission is the use of information gathered through our research to develop, execute and disseminate effective interventions that both improve individual patients health and decrease health disparities. These interventions include supporting social interventions in the Emergency Department (such as the Health Coaches program), sending researchers to conferences, encouraging publications by Levitt Center scientists and establishing community based programs.

Find out more about our research and interventions below.

OBJECTIVE 3: Education and Outreach

The Levitt Center aims to promote social emergency medicine programs in emergency departments throughout the United States and to increase dialogue about Social Emergency Medicine among medical and public health researchers as well as the general public. We strive to achieve these goals by developing Social Emergency Medicine conferences and supporting the establishment of Social Emergency Medicine programs.

The Levitt Center provided guidance to the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) to help launch a Social Emergency Medicine Section. The Director of Research at the Levitt Center, Dr. Harrison Alter, served as the first chair of the Social Emergency Medicine Section. The Levitt Center also co-developed the “Inventing Social Emergency Medicine” Consensus Conference and helped facilitate the publication of the proceedings from the conference in the Annuals of Emergency Medicine in November 2019.

Read the Consensus Conference Proceedings here.

OBJECTIVE 4: PROMOTE A HEALTHY AND ACTIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM WITHIN THE HIGHLAND EMERGENCY MEDICINE RESIDENCY

Dr. Andrew Levitt had an unwavering commitment to resident research at Highland Hospital and supporting that research continues to be a core aspect of our work. The Levitt Center provides opportunities and funding to Highland emergency medicine residents to conduct their own research into social emergency medicine.