Potential for Bias in Social Needs Data Collection and Screening Activities in Health Care Settings

What are sources of bias in health-related social needs data?In this qualitative study of 20 patients and 20 health care professionals in 2 states, qualitative interviews described opportunities for sampling bias, detection bias, nonresponse bias, and misclassification bias.These findings suggest that while health-related social needs data are potentially valuable to patient care, their fitness for use in organizational decision-making, research, and health policy may need improvement.

Corresponding Author: Joshua R. Vest, PhD, MPH, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, Indiana University Indianapolis, 1050 Wishard Blvd, Indianapolis, IN 46202 (joshvest@iu.edu).

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