J Health Care Poor Underserved. 2020;31(3):1440-1456. doi: 10.1353/hpu.2020.0104.
Legal clinics housed by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) help veterans eliminate service access barriers. In this survey of 95 VA-housed legal clinics (70% of clinics), clients' legal problems were mainly estate planning, family, obtaining VA benefits, and housing (14-17% of clients). Most clinics rarely interacted with VA health care providers, did not have access to clients' VA health care records, and did not track clients' VA health care access (58-81% of clinics); 32% did not have dedicated and adequate space. Most clinic staff members were unpaid. Survey findings-that most VA-housed legal clinics do not interact with VA health care or directly address clients' mental health and substance use needs, and lack funds to serve fully all veterans seeking services-suggest that VA and community agencies should enact policies that expand and fund veterans' legal services and health system interactions to address health inequities and improve health outcomes.
退伍军人事务部（VA）下设的法律诊所帮助退伍军人消除获取服务的障碍。在对 95 家 VA 法律诊所（占诊所总数的 70%）的调查中，客户的法律问题主要集中在遗嘱规划、家庭事务、获取 VA 福利和住房（占客户的 14-17%）。大多数诊所很少与 VA 医疗服务提供者互动，无法获得客户的 VA 医疗记录，也不跟踪客户的 VA 医疗保健服务获取情况（占诊所的 58-81%）；32%的诊所没有专用且充足的空间。大多数诊所工作人员没有报酬。调查结果表明，大多数 VA 法律诊所不与 VA 医疗保健系统互动，也不直接解决客户的心理健康和药物使用需求，并且缺乏资金为所有寻求服务的退伍军人提供全面服务，这表明 VA 和社区机构应制定政策，扩大和资助退伍军人的法律服务和卫生系统互动，以解决健康不平等问题并改善健康结果。
