Homelessness
Conditions
Brief summary
The purpose of this study is to determine whether a homelessness diversion program integrated into a hospital emergency department (ED) will lower ED use, to identify characteristics of individuals most likely to benefit from homelessness diversion and to discover opportunities to tailor Homelessness Diversion (HD) services to better meet the needs of diverse communities.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALHomeless diversion (HD)
Participants will receive services from specialty-trained community health workers and will be invited to complete monthly assessments via text and phone to assess their health and housing for 6 months and to share feedback on their experience with the intervention after completion by a text message to a link for the survey
BEHAVIORALTreatment-as-usual (TAU)
Participants will receive a list of community resources they can contact to receive services and will be invited to complete monthly assessments via text and phone to assess their health and housing for 6 months and to share feedback on their experience with the intervention after completion by a text message to a link for the survey
Sponsors
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)
The University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE (Investigator)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* English or Spanish speaking * discharged from a Harris Health Hospital ED (Ben Taub or LBJ) * at imminent risk of homelessness * patients with Medicaid, Medicare or who are uninsured
Exclusion criteria
* having a conservator (legal guardian) * plans to move away from Texas in 6 months
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Number of ED visits | end of study (6 months after start of study) |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants who experience homelessness | end of study (6 months after start of study) | — |
| Change in health related quality of life as assessed by the Short Form-12 version 2.0 (SF12v2) health Survey | baseline, month 1, month 2, month 3, month 4, month 5 and month 6 | This is a 12 item questionnaire and scores range from 0 to 100, where a zero score indicates the lowest level of health and 100 indicates the highest level of health. |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed