HIV: A Socioecological Case Study

INTRODUCTION: New strategies are needed to lower health care costs and address the health care needs of communities, especially for marginalized persons and subpopulations. Improved education in health systems, which encompasses population, community, preventive, and public health, is one way to better train the future physician workforce to meet national and local health care needs. This resource was created as part of an 18-month science of health systems and navigation curriculum. METHODS: The purpose of this resource is to use the socioecological model lens to analyze health disparities for marginalized persons and subpopulations. A medically and socially complex patient with HIV is presented as the initial case study that leads to identification of barriers and needs on individual, community, and public policy levels. This is an active-learning resource that includes both small- and large-group discussion driven by self-directed learners using the provided resources. RESULTS: This resource was successfully implemented as a required session for 150 medical students beginning the second year of medical school. A cohort of 21 students randomly selected to complete a standard online course evaluation for the session, rated their agreement (1 = strong disagreement, 5 = strong agreement) to the statement “Rate the extent to which the lecture supported your mastery of the learning objectives,” as 4.4, on average. DISCUSSION: This curriculum has been implemented and evaluated for medical students, but it is broadly applicable to residents and interprofessional students in health-related fields. It is designed to give learners a practical medical context for the application of principles that may be taught within a health systems or population health course.