SONNET Newsletter
Latest issue: Q1 2025
What's new for SONNET in 2025? A message from SONNET Director Meagan Brown
In our first newsletter of 2025, SONNET Director Meagan Brown welcomes new members to our Coordinating Center team and shares an overview of how SONNET is evolving to best support Kaiser Permanente's Social Health Practice. Other featured content includes:
- Highlights from the SIREN National Research Meeting in February
- Newly funded grants to explore social needs in people with multiple chronic conditions
- A recent SONNET paper that sheds light on how social health is linked to intersecting identities of age, income, and race and ethnicity
Previous issue: summer 2024
'Compassion is the through line’: A reflection on SONNET's evolution and future
Our summer 2024 newsletter features a Q&A
with retiring SONNET Program Director Andrea Paolino, who shares her thoughts on the network’s
role in advancing social health at Kaiser Permanente and beyond. Other newsletter highlights include:
- Opportunities to share social health findings at the Social Interventions Research & Evaluation Network (SIREN) National Research Meeting and in a forthcoming special issue of Health Affairs.
- Links to recent publications on important social health topics such as medical school curricula, the link between food insecurity and hypoglycemia, and a digital health intervention for people experiencing homelessness.
Past issues
Spring 2024
SONNET's latest project sheds more light on the link between social risk and acute utilization
Highlights from our spring 2024 newsletter include:
- New findings on how 3 specific social risks — financial strain, food insecurity, and housing instability — are related to emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations among Kaiser Permanente members nationwide
- Links to SONNET's latest peer-reviewed publications
- Publicly available resources to support health equity in research activities and the use of digital health care technologies
Winter 2024
New SONNET results and resources
Highlights from from our winter 2024 newsletter include:
- Results from a concept mapping approach used to rank important research and operational questions that could advance social health practice at Kaiser Permanente
- Results on the design and evaluation of ‘Addressing Social Health in Medicine,’ a web-based CME course launched at Kaiser Permanente
- SONNET's new journal information tool: A handy compilation of social health publication opportunities for social health researchers
Fall 2023
Results are in from Kaiser Permanente's 2022 National Social Health Survey!
Our second national survey of members' social needs reaffirms that our work to improve social health is as important as ever. Access survey findings and more SONNET news in our fall 2023 newsletter.
Summer 2023
New SONNET report sheds light on social needs and health care utilization among older adults
The latest report from SONNET’s Evaluation and Research Committee (ERC) focuses on social needs among Kaiser Permanente Northwest members age 65 and older — and on how these needs are linked to health care utilization. Access this report and read more SONNET news in our summer 2023 newsletter.
Spring 2023
SONNET welcomes Meagan Brown to leadership team and bids a fond farewell to Cara Lewis
SONNET recently welcomed Meagan Brown, PhD, as our new associate director while saying a grateful goodbye to former co-director Cara Lewis, PhD. Meagan is leading several SONNET projects, including Kaiser Permanente's 2022 National Social Health Survey, results of which will be released later this summer. Learn more about the national survey and other recent SONNET projects in our spring 2023 newsletter.
Winter 2023
Get to know Maile Tauali‘i: Mother, farmer, community leader, and social health researcher
Maile Tauali'i, PhD, MPH, is a mom of 6 and a hula practitioner who runs a food forest farm in Oahu. She is also a KP clinical investigator and a valued member of SONNET’s Evaluation and Research Committee. Our winter 2023 newsletter features a snapshot of Maile's work and her advice to researchers interested in social health — along with new SONNET reports on the link between social needs and health outcomes.
Summer 2022
Social Health for Everyone: Sharing SONNET survey results at national SDOH symposium
Anand Shah and Meagan Brown presented the closing keynote at Modern Healthcare's 2022 Social Determinants of Health Symposium, sharing results of recent SONNET-led research that sheds light on the prevalence of social needs among KP members.
Spring 2022
Social risks: Do patients want health systems to help?
New SONNET study looks at patients' unmet social risks and their desire for assistance.
December 2021
Understanding the impacts of loneliness on Health
KP researchers conduct the largest known study on loneliness – assessing data from 24,000 KP members – to better understand the impact of loneliness on health, factors that contribute to loneliness, and what can help stop loneliness.
July 2021
How SONNET can serve as KP's nerve center for social health research and evaluation
SONNET's new directors Katie Coleman and Cara Lewis share their vision for bridging research and operations to advance social health at KP and beyond.
Sept. 28, 2020 Volume 4, Issue 3
The Impact of the Community Resource Specialist: Integrating a Lay Health Worker to Address Social Needs in Kaiser Permanente Washington clinics
By: Consuelo Marin Norris, MA, and Cara C. Lewis, PhD
March 2, 2020 Volume 4, Issue 2
Special: A note from SONNET's director, Dr. John F. Steiner
By: John F. Steiner, MD, MPH, SONNET Director and Senior Researcher at Institute for Health Research
March 2, 2020 Volume 4, Issue 1
Why Look at Social Needs?
By: Sumita Bhatia, MPH, MS, Care Management Institute (CMI)
Feb. 10, 2019 Volume 3, Issue 2
Better Opportunities for Physical Activity at Work and Home Have Positive Effects on Body Mass Index
By: Douglas W. Roblin, PhD, Mid-Atlantic Permanente Research Institute and Kristina H. Lewis , MD MPH SM, Wake Forest School of Medicine
Jan. 10, 2019 Volume 3, Issue 1
Walk a Mile in Their Shoes
By: Adam L. Sharp, MD, MSc, Southern California Permanente Medical Group,, Alyssa Tjajadi-Millan, MPH, Kaiser Permanente Southern California, and Tadashi T. Funahashi , MD, Kaiser Permanente Southern California
Dec. 10, 2018 Volume 2, Issue 5
Pathways to Identify Basic Resource Needs
By: John F. Steiner, MD, MPH, Senior Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Colorado and Claudia L. Nau, PhD, Research Scientist I, Southern California Permanente Medical Group
Nov. 12, 2018 Volume 2, Issue 4
Perceptions and Experience of Patients, Staff, and Clinicians with Social Needs Assessment
By: Courtnee Hamity, PhD, Principal Consultant, Center for Evaluation & Analytics and Ana Jackson, PhD, Director of Evaluation
Sept. 10, 2018 Volume 2, Issue 3
CESR: Social Needs Patient Reported Outcomes Surveys Added to the VDW
By: Reesa Laws - Coordinating Center Manager / Technical Research Program Manager
June 19, 2018 Volume 2, Issue 2
SNAP Enrollment Program Launches in California
By: Jayme Magallanes, MPH - Senior Project Manager of National Medicaid and Charitable Health Care
May 9, 2018 Volume 2, Issue 1
Why SONNET? Why now? Why Kaiser Permanente?
By: Loel S. Solomon, PhD, Vice President of Kaiser Permanente Community Health
Dec. 13, 2017 Volume 1, Issue 4 (Story 2 of 2)
Kaiser Permanente’s Social Services Resource Locator (SSRL) Update
By: Sarita Mohanty, MD, MPH, MBA and Sarah Threlfall, MPH
Dec. 13, 2017 Volume 1, Issue 4 (Story 1 of 2)
Toward Achieving Total Health: Developing a Health System to Address Social Determinants of Health Needs
By: Matthew Banegas, PhD, MPH and Nicole L. Friedman, MS
Nov. 13, 2017 Volume 1, Issue 3
Concurrent Social Needs in Elderly KP Members with Food Insecurity
By: John F. Steiner, MD, MPH, Senior Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Colorado
Oct. 16, 2017 Volume 1, Issue 2
Researchers Study How Community Health Centers Can Use EHRs to Track and Act on Patients’ Social Determinants of Health
By: Rachel Gold, PhD, MPH
Sept. 8, 2017 Volume 1, Issue 1
Identifying and Addressing Social Needs for Members with High Medical Cost: The KP Southern California Health Leads Pilot
By: Adam Sharp, MD, MS
Learn more
SONNET's newsletter for our KP audience
If you're a KP employee, you might be interested in the internal version of our newsletter, which includes news customized for our KP community. Please email us at sonnet@kp.org to subscribe or to request a past issue.
Recent SONNET reports
Kaiser Permanente 2022 National Social Health Survey
In this follow up to our 2020 survey, we heard from more than 6,300 members nationwide about their social needs
and desire for assistance from Kaiser Permanente. Project lead: Meagan Brown, PhD, MPH.
Social risks and acute health care utilization
This report summarizes findings on the link between 3 specific social risks — financial strain, food insecurity, and housing instability — and emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations among Kaiser Permanente members nationwide. Project lead: Morgan Clenin, PhD, MPH.
Social risks and health care utilization among older adults
Looking at data from KP’s Medicare Total Health Assessment survey, this SONNET project found that having more social needs was linked to higher emergency department (ED) utilization and hospital admissions among older adult members of KP Northwest. Project lead: David Mosen, PhD, MPH.
Contact SONNET
Email us at sonnet@kp.org to learn more about our work or sign up for our newsletter.
Land Acknowledgment
Our Seattle offices sit on the occupied land of the Duwamish and by the shared waters of the Coast Salish people, who have been here thousands of years and remain. Learn about practicing land acknowledgment.