ArticleJournal of the American Geriatrics Society2025
The Congregational Care Network: Preliminary Data From a Healthcare/Congregational Partnership for At-Risk Older Adults.
Article in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The trial behind it
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- The Congregational Care Network: Preliminary Data From a Healthcare/Congregational Partnership for At-Risk Older Adults.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSocial isolation and loneliness are significant public health crises that can exacerbate stress and diminish health behaviors, leading to overall reductions in well-being. The effects of systemic upstream social determinants of health (SDOH) can worsen these effects. Partnerships between communities of faith and health systems have the potential to reduce social isolation and loneliness, address unmet social needs, and improve access to healthcare.
methodsThe Congregational Care Network (CCN), a collaboration between a health system and local congregations in neighborhoods with high poverty and gaps in other SDOH, provided 1 h per week of individual, volunteer companionship to older adult patients for 90 days. The health system provided training and professional support from social workers and chaplains. A program evaluation measured loneliness before and after participation and healthcare utilization in the 90 days before, during, and after the program.
resultsCCN recruited 28 congregations representing diverse religious affiliations and 335 patients participated in the CCN program. Patients who received CCN services had a median age of 64.9 years (standard deviation 11.5), were 27.2% male, and 58.8% Black. There were significant reductions in DeJong Gierveld loneliness scores from before to after program engagement (median change score: 1 (interquartile range (IQR) 0-2, p < 0.001)). The proportion with 1+ emergency department visits was significantly lower after CCN compared to before (16.8% vs. 24.6%, p = 0.007); the proportion with inpatient visits was lower during CCN compared to before (12.2% vs. 17.3% vs. p = 0.032). The proportion with outpatient visits was higher during CCN than before (71.0% vs. 63.8%, p = 0.045).
conclusionThe CCN partnership between congregations and a local health system is a feasible model for at-risk older adults that may reduce loneliness and shift healthcare utilization from acute to outpatient settings, providing greater continuity of care and fewer burdensome acute care visits.
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