Health
- 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.
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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.
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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.
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Housing is a critical social determinant of health that can be addressed through hospital-supported community benefit programming. Currently, a small subset of hospitals nationally are addressing housing. Hospitals may need additional policy support, external partnerships, and technical assistance to address housing in their communities.
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We thus use actor-network theory (ANT) concepts to develop a multi-level conceptualisation of resilience, arguing that ‘housing resilience’ unfolds on five levels. We then demonstrated the robustness of this conceptualisation by mobilising it as a lens for an analysis, starting with 11 state-level housing policies in Australia.
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This review synthesised the evidence on the effectiveness and acceptability of interventions which aim to improve mental health outcomes in homeless women.
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We mapped the evidence on cancer risk factors as well as barriers and facilitators to cancer prevention services among people experiencing homelessness, which is key to localising research gaps and identifying strategies for tailored interventions adapted to people experiencing homelessness.
- Research
This report reviews and synthesizes evidence examining the association between changes in housing price and health outcomes.
