Exploring the impact of integrated health and social care services on child health and wellbeing in underserved populations: a systematic review

Objective: To explore the evidence for interventions that integrate child health and social care and support programmes and the impact they have on child health and wellbeing. Data sources: The Cochrane Library, Ovid Medline, Ovid Embase, Ovid Emcare, Ovid Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC) database, and Ovid Social Policy and Practice, Proquest Psychinfo and Ebscohost Cinahl. Eligibility: Peer-reviewed original research that described an intervention integrating health care and social support or care interventions for children and young people (CYP) up to the age of 18 years in high-income countries. All databases were searched from inception to August 2023. Data extraction and synthesis: 16 studies were identified: 4 RCTs, 5 quantitative studies, 5 qualitative studies and 2 mixed methods studies. A narrative review and quality check of included studies was performed. Study heterogeneity meant a meta-analysis could not be completed. Results: Five qualitative, five quantitative, two mixed methods and four randomised controlled trials were included. We identified three main models of delivering integrated health and social care services: targeted support for vulnerable groups, where the provision of packages of interventions focussed on target populations showed potential for decreasing the need for social support in the long-term but with limited evidence for reducing referrals into other services. They were more successful in meeting specific objectives such as lower rates of smoking, and reducing repeat pregnancies; collaborative health and social support were typically collocated services which improved collaborative working but with little impact on workload, job satisfaction, or service delivery; and school centred health and social care, which improved some aspects of CYP wellbeing and physical health but with concerns they added to teacher workload. Conclusions: Integrated health and social support programmes offer promising solutions to addressing health inequity in children and young people in underserved populations. However, more robust and consistent study designs are needed to guide researchers and policy makers in their implementation and evaluation. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement The review was funded by Birmingham Health Partners ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes Data are available upon reasonable request. Additional data and materials such as data collection forms, data extraction and analysis templates and can be obtained by contacting the corresponding author.