Call for papers - Social prescribing

Guest Editors

Kate Mulligan, PhD, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada
Candice Oster, BA (Hons), PhD, Flinders University, Caring Futures Institute, Australia

Submission Status: Open | Submission Deadline: 6 May 2025

BMC Primary Care is excited to announce a new call for submissions to our upcoming Collection on Social prescribing. As a patient-centered approach, social prescribing has gained popularity as a means of connecting individuals to non-clinical services in their communities to improve health and well-being. This Collection aims to explore the implementation and impact of social prescribing interventions, emphasizing collaboration between healthcare providers, community organizations, and social services. By addressing health disparities and promoting patient-centered care, this Collection seeks cutting-edge research on social prescribing’s potential to enhance patient care and improve health outcomes.

New Content Item This Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being and SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities.

Submit to Collection

Meet the Guest Editors

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Kate Mulligan, PhD, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada

Dr Kate Mulligan is an Assistant Professor of Social and Behavioral Health Sciences at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, and is the founding Scientific Director of the Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing. Her research focuses on the role of the community sector and community-scale leadership, formal and informal, in the production of health and health systems. Dr Mulligan is a globally recognized expert in social prescribing, a founding member of the global social prescribing collaborative, and the winner of the 2024 Lori Chow Award for excellence in health promotion.

Candice Oster, BA (Hons), PhD, Flinders University, Caring Futures Institute, Australia

Dr Candice Oster has a psychology and behavioral health background and has undertaken research across the spectrum of behavioral health, from theories and models of health behavior and individual-level interventions through to community, organizational, and policy/structural contexts, including social determinants of health. Her current research explores social prescribing and the application of digital health technology in health coaching. Dr Oster has extensive experience as a qualitative and mixed methods researcher, including participatory research approaches such as photovoice and co-design and the use of implementation science to understand implementation processes and outcomes.

About the Collection

BMC Primary Care invites researchers to contribute to our upcoming Collection on Social prescribing. Social prescribing has emerged as a promising approach in primary care, involving the referral of patients to non-clinical services and activities in the community to address their health and well-being needs. This Collection aims to gather research that explores the implementation and impact of social prescribing interventions, the role of community resources in promoting health outcomes, and the integration of social prescribing within primary care settings. We invite submissions that investigate the effectiveness of social prescribing in addressing health disparities, promoting health equity, and enhancing patient-centered care.

Suggested topics for the Collection include:

Impact of social prescribing on health outcomes
Integration of social prescribing in primary care
Community resources and social prescribing interventions
Addressing health disparities through social prescribing

There are currently no articles in this collection.

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select Social prescribing from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.