MLPB (formerly called Medical Legal Partnership Boston), which “equips health care and human services workforces with upstream problem-solving strategies that address health-related social needs,” held its annual conference in Boston in October 2017, according to a press release. Samantha Morton, MLPB’s CEO, said in the release that with the introduction of value-based care, “health systems have new incentives to recognize and address people’s health-related social needs.” MLPB is a project partner and subgrantee on several rigorous research studies at Boston Medical Center that test social determinants of health interventions, Morton told Health Affairs. The Boston Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, and others are funding the studies. MLPB also is part of a national demonstration project, funded by the JPB Foundation, that scales up an evidence-based pediatrics intervention called Project DULCE (Developmental Understanding and Legal Collaboration for Everyone).
