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Brief report: The aging of the homeless population: Fourteen-year trends in San Francisco

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Homelessness is associated with high rates of health and substance use problems.

OBJECTIVE: To examine trends in the age, housing, health status, health service utilization, and drug use of the homeless population over a 14-year period.

DESIGN: Serial cross-sectional.

PARTICIPANTS: We studied 3,534 literally homeless adults recruited at service providers in San Francisco in 4 waves: 1990–1994, 1996–1998, 1999–2000, and 2003.

MEASUREMENTS: Age, time homeless, self-reported chronic conditions, hospital and emergency department utilization, and drug and alcohol use.

RESULTS: The median age of the homeless increased from 37 to 46 over the study waves, at a rate of 0.66 years per calendar year (P<.01). The median total time homeless increased from 12 to 39.5 months (P<.01). Emergency department visits, hospital admissions, and chronic health conditions increased.

CONCLUSIONS: The homeless population is aging by about two thirds of a year every calendar year, consistent with trends in several other cities. It is likely that the homeless are static, aging population cohort. The aging trends suggest that chronic conditions will become increasingly prominent for homeless health services. This will present challenges to traditional approaches to screening, prevention, and treatment of chronic diseases in an aging homeless population.

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Correspondence to Judith A. Hahn PhD.

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None of the authors have any conflicts of interest to declare.

David Bangsberg and Andrew Moss obtained funding for the study.

Funding: This study was funded by NIH 5R01DA004363, 1R01MH054907, R01DA010164, K08HS11415, and The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. All the work in this study was conducted independently of the NIH and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

All protocols for this study were approved by the Institufional Review Board of the University of California, San Francisco.

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Hahn, J.A., Kushel, M.B., Bangsberg, D.R. et al. Brief report: The aging of the homeless population: Fourteen-year trends in San Francisco. J Gen Intern Med 21, 775–778 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1525-1497.2006.00493.x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1525-1497.2006.00493.x

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