SONNET: What We Do
Science to advance social health
SONNET serves as a centralized resource that leaders, administrators, and clinicians from across Kaiser Permanente can use to advance their social health initiatives. As a learning community of researchers and evaluators that spans KP regions, SONNET supports the design, implementation, and evaluation of specific high-priority social health interventions that KP is leading both regionally and nationally. Our functions are to convene social health researchers and connect them with KP leaders, consult on best practices for KP social health interventions, and communicate what we learn across KP and beyond.
CONVENE
By thoughtfully convening social health researchers and connecting them with national and regional KP leaders, SONNET brings content and methods expertise to the most important questions facing our organization and the field regarding universal screening for social needs. Our experts are working together to develop an operationally driven research agenda and build capacity for social health research at KP and elsewhere – and to evaluate and refine interventions for clinical and operational spread.
Consult
We provide consultation to KP's National Social Health Program and to individual KP regions on best practices, implementation, measurement, and evaluation. Members of our Evaluation and Research Committee are available to help with regional efforts to pilot test and implement social health interventions. Our ERC members can share key insights on underlying assumptions, help shape the evaluation questions, and synthesize existing evidence to inform decision making and design.
Communicate
We communicate what we learn across the KP enterprise and beyond, acting as a learning and action network to advance social health research and practice. By sharing knowledge and insights from SONNET projects, we help cultivate a collective understanding of KP's research priorities, advance KP's capabilities around key metrics and methods, and accelerate the adoption of best practices across KP regions.
Learn more
Our latest report
Social Risk-Informed Care Evaluation
Read results of SONNET's research on how to implement social risk-informed care in this report by Stephanie L. Fitzpatrick, PhD, and Dea Papajorgji-Taylor, MPH, from Kaiser Permanente Northwest Center for Health Research.
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.