Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #102403

Greg Greenberg, Phd, Northeast Program Evaluation Center, VAMC West Haven, Ct. as well as Yale University Department of Psychiatry, New Haven, CT., VA Northeast Program Evaluation Center /182, 950 Campbell Ave, New haven, CT 06511, 203-789-0487, greenberg@biomed.med.yale.edu and Robert A. Rosenheck, MD, Northeast Administration Evaluation Center (NEPEC), Veterans Administration Medical Center, 950 Campbell Avenue, West Haven, CT 06516.

This study uses a national data set to identify individual and community predictors of housing status at discharge from an acute inpatient episode of care of veterans who were homeless at admission. Between 1995 and 1998 a supplemental survey to the VA annual inpatient census identified homeless veterans in VA inpatient and domiciliary programs. For those who were identified as homeless at the time of the survey, data were collected on their housing status at the time of discharge. The resulting sample consisted of 5,561 veterans. Data on the type of bed and length of stay as well as sociodemographic and clinical characteristics were extracted from VA administration files. Data from census files and other sources were also used to create several county-level measures reflecting the housing environment. We used a signal detection technique, Receiver Operating Characteristic, analysis to identify predictors of housing status at discharge. It was found that veterans who had a longer length of stay and were treated in a psychiatric rather than a medical unit had better housing outcomes at discharge. It was also found that veterans' likelihood of being homeless was influenced by the percentage of homeowners' income devoted to mortgage payments. Since many homeless veterans may not need a long length of stay for acute treatment for either a psychiatric or medical illness it is important that following discharge residential care facilities are available so that veterans are able to make permanent housing arrangements.

Learning Objectives:

• To be able to identify potentially effective interventions for improving homeless housing outcomes of individuals who have received acute inpatient care.

Keywords: Homeless Health Care,

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.