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

Abstract #107529

Suzanne Zerger, MA, National Health Care for Homeless Council, 42 Marchmount Road, Toronto, ON M6G 2A9, Canada, 416-656-0780, szerger@nhchc.org

As health services and procedures are increasingly provided on an outpatient basis and hospital stays are becoming shorter, a greater emphasis is placed on care and support available in individuals' homes; this puts people without homes at a dire disadvantage. Programs providing health care to homeless persons have responded to this need by developing “respite” services for those not sick enough to justify hospitalization but without safe alternatives for recuperation. In 2000, the Bureau of Primary Health Care provided funds to support ten Health Care for the Homeless programs to enhance their respite care services. This study presents findings from an evaluation of these programs aimed at better understanding the relative success of these differing service models in achieving positive patient outcomes. Client-level data provide a comprehensive picture of the health needs and resources of persons the respite programs serve, the level and scope of services required to care for them, and changes in the health and resource status of individuals as a result of being cared for in a respite program. Program-level data describe contextual and environmental characteristics which impact the relative “success” of a given program model. Data on individuals turned away from these programs during the evaluation period provide an understanding of the role and impact of these programs in the community. Besides documenting the effects of various respite service models on the health of homeless individuals, this evaluation provides a rich portrait of the homeless people served by these programs and the effects of homelessness.

Learning Objectives:

• 1) Describe various models for providing respite care to homeless persons, and advantages and disadvantages associated with those models.
• 2) Determine how individual homeless clients’ health and housing outcomes were influenced by the differing respite program approaches.
• 3) Identify the roles and impacts of respite care services in their communities.

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.