Treating poverty like a disease could be helpful in treating actual disease, according to a post from the Center for Advancing Health's Prepared Patient Blog.
The blog's author, journalist and professor Trudy Lieberman, encountered the concept while on a Fulbright fellowship in Canada, during which she met Gary Bloch, MD, a family practitioner at Toronto-based St. Michael's Hospital.
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Dr. Bloch has created a clinical tool for "treating" poverty in his practice. The tool covers addressing poverty with patients, factoring poverty into risk factors for disease and determining whether patients in poverty have applied to all relevant supplemental programs to which they are entitled.
The Ontario Medical Association is set to publish a version of the tool, according to the post.
Along with other tools concerning patient poverty, the clinical tools for poverty are available for download on the Ontario College of Family Physicians website.
Note: Tools are customized for use in Canada.
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