Moving Health Care Upstream to Advance Health, Health Quality, and Health Equity: Defining Social Prescribing and Exploring the Impact on Children and Youth

Abstract

Social prescribing is gaining traction globally, with over 30 countries involved in the social prescribing movement. The aim of this thesis was to contribute to the advancement of this field by addressing two notable evidence gaps, namely the lack of agreement on the definition of social prescribing and the absence of a comprehensive review of the evidence on social prescribing for children and youth. To address the first evidence gap, a Delphi study was conducted to establish internationally accepted conceptual and operational definitions of social prescribing (Chapter 2). This study brought together 48 social prescribing experts from 26 countries to establish global agreement on what social prescribing is. This research culminated in the successful development of internationally accepted conceptual and operational definitions of social prescribing, as well as the Common Understanding of Social Prescribing (CUSP) conceptual framework. Subsequently, as a knowledge mobilization initiative for this work, a collective commentary was written with over 50 leaders in the field to reflect on the use and utility of the outputs of this work, and where we go from here (Chapter 3). To address the second evidence gap, a scoping review was conducted to map the evidence on the use of social prescribing for children and youth (Chapter 4). This study revealed that this area of research is still in its infancy, with limited, albeit promising, evidence on this topic and notable knowledge gaps in the evidence base. This thesis makes significant contributions to the field, with each phase playing its own unique role in the achievement of the aim of this thesis. By successfully addressing the aforementioned evidence gaps, this thesis has helped to move the field forward.