Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021;32(3):1619-1634.
doi: 10.1353/hpu.2021.0153.

Health Status and Chronic Disease Burden of the Homeless Population: An Analysis of Two Decades of Multi-Institutional Electronic Medical Records

Wyatt P Bensken, Nikolas I Krieger, Kristen A Berg, Douglas Einstadter, Jarrod E Dalton, Adam T Perzynski

Health Status and Chronic Disease Burden of the Homeless Population: An Analysis of Two Decades of Multi-Institutional Electronic Medical Records

Wyatt P Bensken et al. J Health Care Poor Underserved. 2021.

Abstract

Using a multi-institutional EMR registry, we extracted housing status and evaluated the presence of several important comorbidities in order to describe the demographics and comorbidity burden of persons experiencing homelessness in northeast Ohio and compare this to non-homeless individuals of varying socioeconomic position. Of 1,974,766 patients in the EMR registry, we identified 15,920 (0.8%) as homeless, 351,279 (17.8%) as non-homeless and in the top quintile of area deprivation index (ADI), and 1,607,567 (81.4%) as non-homeless and in the lower four quintiles of area deprivation. The comorbidity burden was highest in the homeless population with depression (48.1%), anxiety (45.8%), hypertension (44.2%), cardiovascular disease (18.4%), and hepatitis (18.1%) among the most prevalent conditions. We conclude that it is possible to identify homeless individuals and document their comorbidity burden using a multi-institutional EMR registry, in order to guide future interventions to address the health of the homeless at the health-system and community level.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Comorbidity prevalence by housing status.
High area deprivation is defined as the top quintile of the Area Deprivation Index (ADI). The conditions are grouped by broad disease category. MDD = Major Depressive Disorder; Anxiety,Dissoc,Somat Disorders = Anxiety, Dissociative, and Somatoform Disorders; HIV/AIDS = Human immunodeficiency virus/Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Schroeder SA. Shattuck Lecture. We can do better--improving the health of the American people. N Engl J Med. 2007;357(12):1221–1228. - PubMed
    1. Dalton JE, Perzynski AT, Zidar DA, et al.Accuracy of Cardiovascular Risk Prediction Varies by Neighborhood Socioeconomic Position: A Retrospective Cohort Study. Ann Intern Med. 2017;167(7):456–464. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Walker RJ, Gebregziabher M, Martin-Harris B, Egede LE. Independent effects of socioeconomic and psychological social determinants of health on self-care and outcomes in Type 2 diabetes. Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 2014;36(6):662–668. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Social Determinants of Health. Department of Health and Human Services. Healthy People 2030 Web site. https://health.gov/healthypeople/objectives-and-data/social-determinants.... Published 2021. Accessed 26 July, 2021.
    1. Artiga S, Hinton E. Beyond Health Care: The Role of Social Determinants in Promoting Health and Health Equity. Washington, DC: Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation;2018.

Publication types