Topic modeling on clinical social work notes for exploring social determinants of health factors.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Existing research on social determinants of health (SDoH) predominantly focuses on physician notes and structured data within electronic medical records. This study posits that social work notes are an untapped, potentially rich source for SDoH information. We hypothesize that clinical notes recorded by social workers, whose role is to ameliorate social and economic factors, might provide a complementary information source of data on SDoH compared to physician notes, which primarily concentrate on medical diagnoses and treatments. We aimed to use word frequency analysis and topic modeling to identify prevalent terms and robust topics of discussion within a large cohort of social work notes including both outpatient and in-patient consultations.

Materials and methods

SUBMITTER: Sun S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10788143 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature