Association Between Use of Services To Address Adverse Social Determinants of Health and Documented Suicide Attempt Among Patients in the Veterans Health Administration.

Suicide prevention is a top priority for the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and suicide is often associated with adverse social factors (e.g., financial, legal, and housing problems). The VA provides social services integrated with healthcare services, which may increase the opportunities t...

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Publicado en:Journal of Community Health Vol. 50; no. 5; pp. 783 - 796
Autores principales: Blosnich, John R., DeRussy, Aerin, Richman, Joshua S., Dichter, Melissa E., True, Gala, Montgomery, Ann Elizabeth
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature Oct2025
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Oct2025
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      tig:
        atl: Association Between Use of Services To Address Adverse Social Determinants of Health and Documented Suicide Attempt Among Patients in the Veterans Health Administration.
      aug:
        au:
          Blosnich, John R.
          DeRussy, Aerin
          Richman, Joshua S.
          Dichter, Melissa E.
          True, Gala
          Montgomery, Ann Elizabeth
        affil:
          https://ror.org/05rsv9s98 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
          https://ror.org/03taz7m60 Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, University of Southern California, 669 W 34th Street, 90089, Los Angeles, CA, USA
          https://ror.org/05rsv9s98 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Birmingham VA Health Care System, Birmingham, AL, USA
          https://ror.org/05rsv9s98 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, Philadelphia, PA, USA
          https://ror.org/00kx1jb78 School of Social Work, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
          https://ror.org/02hd1sz82 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, South Central Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, New Orleans, LA, USA
          https://ror.org/01qv8fp92 Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-New Orleans, School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA, USA
          https://ror.org/008s83205 Department of Health Behavior, University of Alabama at Birmingham, School of Public Health, Birmingham, AL, USA
      su:
        United States. Dept. of Veterans Affairs
        Suicide risk factors
        Life change events
        Public housing
        Social determinants of health
        Social services
        Social factors
        Unemployment
        Sex distribution
        Help-seeking behavior
        Age distribution
        Retrospective studies
        Suicidal behavior
        Race
        Social support
        Criminal justice system
        Homelessness
        Patients' attitudes
        Medical care use
        Statistical correlation
        Research funding
        Medical care of veterans
        Data analysis
        Logistic regression analysis
        Descriptive statistics
        Military sexual trauma
        Chi-squared test
        Longitudinal method
        Odds ratio
        Electronic health records
        Research
        Medical records
        Acquisition of data
        Statistics
        Housing stability
        Confidence intervals
        Data analysis software
      sug:
        subj:
          Suicide risk factors
          Life change events
          Public housing
          Social determinants of health
          Social services
          Social factors
          Unemployment
          Sex distribution
          Help-seeking behavior
          Age distribution
          Retrospective studies
          Suicidal behavior
          Race
          Social support
          Criminal justice system
          Homelessness
          Patients' attitudes
          United States. Dept. of Veterans Affairs
          Other Justice, Public Order, and Safety Activities
          Lessors of social housing projects
          Other Individual and Family Services
          Administration of Veterans' Affairs
          Medical care use
          Statistical correlation
          Research funding
          Medical care of veterans
          Data analysis
          Logistic regression analysis
          Descriptive statistics
          Military sexual trauma
          Chi-squared test
          Longitudinal method
          Odds ratio
          Electronic health records
          Research
          Medical records
          Acquisition of data
          Statistics
          Housing stability
          Confidence intervals
          Data analysis software
      keyword:
        Legal problems
        Medical and Health Sciences Public Health and Health Services
        Suicide attempt
        Veterans
        Legal problems
        Medical and Health Sciences Public Health and Health Services
        Suicide attempt
        Veterans
      ab: Suicide prevention is a top priority for the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and suicide is often associated with adverse social factors (e.g., financial, legal, and housing problems). The VA provides social services integrated with healthcare services, which may increase the opportunities to detect and document suicide attempt in EHR records. Using VA administrative data, we examined three cohorts of all patients from 2014 to 2018 who had housing instability (n = 659,987), justice involvement (n = 200,487), and unemployment (n = 346,556). Administrative records were used to determine ordinal indicators of receipt of VA social services (no services, low, or high). The outcome was suicide attempt noted in the healthcare record (i.e., documented suicide attempt) in the 1–6 months following the incident adverse social factor. We conducted logistic regressions utilizing a discrete-time survival framework with person-month as the unit of analysis, which facilitated accounting for covariates while isolating the independent association of social service utilization. After adjusting for covariates, high receipt of housing services (vs. no services) was significantly associated with documented suicide attempt during the 6-month observation period (aOR = 1.14, 95%CI = 1.06–1.22). A similar association was observed for high vs. no use of justice programs (aOR 1.24; 95% CI:1.12–1.37). There was no significant association between employment services utilization and documented suicide attempt during the 6-month observation period. Our finding that utilization of social services as positively associated with documented suicide attempt likely reflects increased suicide attempt surveillance and documentation with social service involvement. Future research should explore operationalizing patient-level distress in administrative data.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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