Health
- Research
Co-production of palliative care research with people with lived experience of homelessness is essential, but must be done carefully and sensitively. As a population with high levels of premature morbidity and mortality yet low access to palliative care, the TIFFIN recommendations could help to support the involvement of people with lived experience of homelessness in palliative and end-of-life-care care research.
- Research
Health care providers and systems should leverage their political power to advocate for policies that scale durable, evidence-based solutions to reduce homelessness, including increased funding to expand housing choice vouchers and greater investment in the creation and preservation of affordable housing.
- Research
When housing interventions incorporate supportive elements like case management, notable enhancement in health and employment outcomes for the youth are noted compared to housing-only initiatives.
- Research
This study sought to describe and explore associations among selected determinants of health and self-reported scores on indicators of psychological capital among youth experiencing homelessness.
- Research
In this issue of CMAJ, Alston and colleagues describe the urgent and complex problem of homelessness among older adults, a growing population nationwide.
- Research
Urban poverty and homelessness keep growing while investments in health-promoting services and public infrastructure, including drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) have been decreasing. We used a mixed-method approach to collect data from 45 unhoused individuals in Germany identifying individual, infrastructure-specific, and location-based solutions to improve public WASH. Suggestions included adapting existing infrastructure, opening up existing, but inaccessible and constructing new inclusive infrastructure. Proactive, long-term sustainable solutions were preferred over reactive short-time options. Realizing safe WASH for all requires collaboration between homeless communities, governmental bodies, NGOs, businesses, and sanitation experts.
- Research
As urban temperatures rise, air pollution concurrently worsens—especially ground-level ozone and particulates —because heat alters both atmospheric chemistry cycles and air circulation patterns. One population that is among the most vulnerable to the twin threats of heat exposure and air pollution is also chronically understudied and plagued by stigma: people experiencing homelessness.
- Research
Emergency shelters offer temporary sleeping accommodation to people deprived of housing and connect them to services. Service restriction is the practice of limiting or denying someone access to emergency shelters. This parallel convergent mixed methods study describes the characteristics, healthcare utilization, and morbidity of people experiencing service restrictions in Hamilton, Ontario, and explores the relationship between health and service restriction. Participants’ high healthcare need and utilization was shaped by criminalization, stigma, societal abandonment, and abstinence-based substance use policies.
