A Novel Index Measure of Housing-related Risk as a Predictor of Overdose among Young People Who Inject Drugs and Injection Networks

BACKGROUND: For people who inject drugs (PWID), housing instability due to decreasing housing affordability and other factors (e.g., loss of housing due to severed relational ties, evictions due to drug use) results in added pressure on an already vulnerable population. Research has shown that housing instability is associated with overdose risk among PWID. However, the construct of housing instability has often been operationalized as a single dimension (e.g., housing type, homelessness, transience). We propose a multi-dimensional measure of housing instability risk and examine its association with drug overdose to promote a more holistic examination of housing status as a predictor of overdose. METHODS: The baseline data from a network-based, longitudinal study of young PWID and their networks living in metropolitan Chicago, Illinois was analyzed to examine the relationship between a housing instability risk index—consisting of five dichotomous variables assessing housing instability—and lifetime overdose count using negative binomial regression. RESULTS: We found a significant positive association between the housing instability risk score and lifetime overdose count after adjusting for 12 variables. CONCLUSIONS: Our results support the practical utility of a multi-dimensional measure of housing instability risk in predicting overdose and highlight the importance of taking a holistic approach to addressing housing instability when designing interventions.