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Multimorbidity among People Experiencing Homelessness—Insights from Primary Care Data

Background: Although the poor health of people experiencing homelessness is increasingly recognised in health discourse, there is a dearth of research that has quantified the nature and magnitude of chronic health issues and morbidity among people experiencing homelessness, particularly in the Austr...

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Autores principales: Vallesi, Shannen, Tuson, Matthew, Davies, Andrew, Wood, Lisa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8296483/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34208580
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126498
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author Vallesi, Shannen
Tuson, Matthew
Davies, Andrew
Wood, Lisa
author_facet Vallesi, Shannen
Tuson, Matthew
Davies, Andrew
Wood, Lisa
author_sort Vallesi, Shannen
collection PubMed
description Background: Although the poor health of people experiencing homelessness is increasingly recognised in health discourse, there is a dearth of research that has quantified the nature and magnitude of chronic health issues and morbidity among people experiencing homelessness, particularly in the Australian context. Methods: Analysis of the medical records of 2068 “active” patients registered with a specialist homeless health service in Perth, Western Australia as of 31 December 2019. Results: Overall, 67.8% of patients had at least one chronic physical health condition, 67.5% had at least one mental health condition, and 61.6% had at least one alcohol or other drug (AOD) use disorder. Nearly half (47.8%) had a dual diagnosis of mental health and AOD use issues, and over a third (38.1%) were tri-morbid (mental health, AOD and physical health condition). Three-quarters (74.9%) were multimorbid or had at least two long-term conditions (LTCs), and on average, each patient had 3.3 LTCs. Conclusions: The study findings have substantial implications from both a health risk and healthcare treatment perspective for people experiencing homeless. The pervasiveness of preventable health conditions among people experiencing homelessness also highlights the imperative to improve the accessibility of public health programs and screening to reduce their morbidity and premature mortality.
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spelling pubmed-82964832021-07-23 Multimorbidity among People Experiencing Homelessness—Insights from Primary Care Data Vallesi, Shannen Tuson, Matthew Davies, Andrew Wood, Lisa Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Background: Although the poor health of people experiencing homelessness is increasingly recognised in health discourse, there is a dearth of research that has quantified the nature and magnitude of chronic health issues and morbidity among people experiencing homelessness, particularly in the Australian context. Methods: Analysis of the medical records of 2068 “active” patients registered with a specialist homeless health service in Perth, Western Australia as of 31 December 2019. Results: Overall, 67.8% of patients had at least one chronic physical health condition, 67.5% had at least one mental health condition, and 61.6% had at least one alcohol or other drug (AOD) use disorder. Nearly half (47.8%) had a dual diagnosis of mental health and AOD use issues, and over a third (38.1%) were tri-morbid (mental health, AOD and physical health condition). Three-quarters (74.9%) were multimorbid or had at least two long-term conditions (LTCs), and on average, each patient had 3.3 LTCs. Conclusions: The study findings have substantial implications from both a health risk and healthcare treatment perspective for people experiencing homeless. The pervasiveness of preventable health conditions among people experiencing homelessness also highlights the imperative to improve the accessibility of public health programs and screening to reduce their morbidity and premature mortality. MDPI 2021-06-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8296483/ /pubmed/34208580 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126498 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Vallesi, Shannen
Tuson, Matthew
Davies, Andrew
Wood, Lisa
Multimorbidity among People Experiencing Homelessness—Insights from Primary Care Data
title Multimorbidity among People Experiencing Homelessness—Insights from Primary Care Data
title_full Multimorbidity among People Experiencing Homelessness—Insights from Primary Care Data
title_fullStr Multimorbidity among People Experiencing Homelessness—Insights from Primary Care Data
title_full_unstemmed Multimorbidity among People Experiencing Homelessness—Insights from Primary Care Data
title_short Multimorbidity among People Experiencing Homelessness—Insights from Primary Care Data
title_sort multimorbidity among people experiencing homelessness—insights from primary care data
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8296483/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34208580
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126498
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