Health systems have invested heavily in expanding health-related social needs (HRSN) screening to more systematically identify unmet needs, yet emerging evidence shows that the very process designed to uncover inequity is being shaped by inequitable structures. In the related article “Potential for Bias in Social Needs Data Collection in Health Care Settings“ in this issue of JAMA Health Forum, Joshua R. Vest and colleagues demonstrate that screening practices reflect clinician assumptions, patient fears, and structural barriers, such as language access, producing data that underrepresent the very populations screening is meant to identify.

This article features Ninez A. Ponce, center director at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research (CHPR).