Residential history, the electronic health record, and clinical medicine: A descriptive study in a lung transplant cohort

Abstract

Neighborhood level social determinants of health are commonly measured using a patient's most recent residential location. Not accounting for residential history, and therefore missing accumulated stressors from prior social vulnerabilities, could increase misclassification bias. We tested the hypothesis that the electronic health record could capture the residential history of lung transplant patients –a vulnerable population. After applying the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) to individual residential histories, the most recent SVI equaled the first SVI in only 15.4% (58/374) of patients. There is a need for databases with residential histories to inform place-based determinants of health and applications to patient care.