Integrated Approaches to ESG Frameworks in Advancing Health Equity, Primary Care Performance, and Community Health

The intersection of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors with population health has gained increasing relevance as policy, organizational, and investment frameworks expand across sectors that shape people’s living conditions and access to care. While ESG factors have been lauded for promoting sustainable and responsible practices, current research often explores their environmental, social, or governance dimensions in isolation, rarely considering their combined contributions to community health needs, health equity, and the delivery of care in family medicine and primary care settings. This fragmented approach persists despite growing regulatory expectations and the expanding influence of ESG-oriented strategies, including within health services and related industries. As global attention pivots toward sustainable development and equitable growth, there is a critical need to understand how ESG frameworks collectively impact health outcomes, health equity, and the performance of health care systems, including outcomes that matter in primary care such as access, continuity, person-centered care, and prevention.Empirical studies examining the direct and indirect effects of ESG elements on health remain scarce, in part due to the nascency of analytical methodologies capable of capturing these complex relationships at the community, practice, and patient levels. The lack of robust quantitative tools and causal inference models limits policy makers’, health system leaders’, and primary care teams’ ability to evaluate the real-world effects of ESG-linked interventions on determinants of health and service delivery. Recent methodological progress in data science, epidemiology, health services research, and policy evaluation now provides an opportunity to bridge these gaps. However, genuine advances require interdisciplinary cooperation and systematic integration of economic, social, environmental, and epidemiological data sources, including primary care data such as electronic health records and practice-based registries, to better inform both policy and practice.This Research Topic aims to consolidate diverse scholarly efforts to develop, test, and apply innovative tools and frameworks for assessing the health impacts of ESG adoption, with particular attention to how ESG-related determinants translate into primary care demand, clinical presentations over time, prevention opportunities, and equity in access and outcomes. The main objective is to nurture interdisciplinary research that quantitatively evaluates the consequences of ESG implementation for public and community health, primary care delivery and performance, and health equity. Contributions that leverage advances in data analytics, causal inference, and policy evaluation are especially welcome, as are studies that propose actionable ESG-informed recommendations for health services, including interventions and models of care that can be implemented in family medicine and primary care, often through multidisciplinary collaboration. Ultimately, the goal is to stimulate dialogue and knowledge exchange between family medicine clinicians, primary care researchers, public health experts, epidemiologists, health economists, and policy makers.To gather further insights on the integration of ESG frameworks within public health and healthcare systems, and their implications for family medicine and primary care, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• Quantitative assessment of ESG indicators and primary care-relevant outcomes (e.g., access, continuity, prevention uptake, avoidable hospital use)• Effects of ESG adoption on health equity and access to primary care across communities and populations• Development and application of causal inference tools for ESG–health linkages using primary care and community data• Impact of governance and transparency on primary care system performance, trust, and patient experience• Influence of environmental and climate-related ESG factors on presentations and risks commonly managed in primary care• Social and labor dimensions of ESG in relation to community health needs, mental health, and chronic disease management in primary care populations• Methodological innovations in the evaluation of ESG-informed health and community policies with measurable impact on primary care services• Interdisciplinary approaches to ESG-informed interventions involving multidisciplinary primary care teams (e.g., nurses, pharmacists, allied health professionals) and community partnersSubmissions may include original research, methodological papers, systematic reviews, policy analyses, and case studies. Topic editors: Angelo Leogrande, Piergiuseppe Liuzzi, Carlo Drago, ALBERTO COSTANTIELLO, Matteo Ruggeri Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/78370/integrated-approaches-to-esg-frameworks-in-advancing-health-equity-primary-care-performance-and-community-health