Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41264076›Full record

ArticleJournal of general internal medicine2025

Examining the Relationship Between Hospital Community Benefits and Community Social Vulnerability.

Hossein Zare, Darrell J Gaskin, Danielle Bargo, Irene Afua Quarshie, Lauren Jordan Barrow, Gerard Anderson

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Article in Journal of general internal medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Hossein ZareDepartment of Health Policy and Management, School of Business, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, University of Maryland Global Campus, Baltimore, MD, USA. hzare1@jhu.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5832-0854
Darrell J GaskinDepartment of Health Policy and Management, School of Business, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, University of Maryland Global Campus, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Danielle BargoDepartment of Health Policy and Management, School of Business, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, University of Maryland Global Campus, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Irene Afua QuarshieDepartment of Health Policy and Management, School of Business, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, University of Maryland Global Campus, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Lauren Jordan BarrowDepartment of Health Policy and Management, School of Business, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, University of Maryland Global Campus, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Gerard AndersonDepartment of Health Policy and Management, School of Business, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, University of Maryland Global Campus, Baltimore, MD, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundOne objective of hospital community benefit spending is to enhance community health, especially for vulnerable groups. Nonprofit hospitals have the potential to make a significant impact in addressing the social needs of communities through the strategic alignment of their community benefit initiatives with the specific needs of the community they serve. This alignment, however, does not always occur.

objectiveTo compare the level of hospital spending with community social need. The hypothesis is that hospitals located in areas with greater social needs will allocate more resources to community needs.

methodsData from IRS Form 990 Schedule H and the American Hospital Association's Annual Survey for 2011-2021 (2182 per year) were analyzed to evaluate hospital community benefit spending. Community benefits were defined as the combination of charity care (CHR), unreimbursed other means-tested (UOM), community benefit services (CBS), health services (not means-tested)/subsidized health services (SHS), community benefit contributions (CBC), and community building activities (CBA). The analysis used the CDC Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) to measure county-level social vulnerability and compared it to community benefit spending using random effect regression models to determine whether greater hospital spending on community benefits was positively associated with the social needs of the hospital's community.

resultsHospitals spend an average of 4.4% of their expenses on these six types of community benefits (IQR25, 1.5%; IQR50, 3.0%; IQR75, 5.4%). The two important predictors of increased spending on community-involved community benefits were the socioeconomic status and the percentage of racially minoritized populations.

conclusionsHospitals located in areas with high social vulnerability (SVI >  0.65) spent almost twice as much on community benefits as hospitals located in areas with a low SV (SVI ≤ 0.65). The IRS and CMS should consider revising their monitoring to make sure that hospitals are focusing on the services that most benefit their community.

Indexed as

Charity careCommunity benefitCommunity health needs assessmentsNonprofit hospitalsSocial vulnerability

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