Mortal Systemic Exclusion Yielded Steep Mortality-Rate Increases In People Experiencing Homelessness, 2011–20 : Study examines mortality among people experiencing homelessness, 2011–20
There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
The number and percentage of people in the US dying while homeless has increased in
recent years. However, information about the causes of death most prevalent among
this population, and about how cause-specific mortality rates may be shifting over
time, has been limited to locally specific data. Using a unique data set of 22,143
homeless decedents in twenty-two localities across ten states and Washington, D.C.,
from the period 2011-20, we found large increases in all-cause and cause-specific
homeless mortality rates. The largest increases in cause-specific homeless mortality
rates in the ten-year period were for deaths related to drug and alcohol overdose,
diabetes, infection, cancer, homicide, and traffic injury. We discuss implications
of these results and posit that people experiencing homelessness are systematically
excluded from the life-affirming institutions of housing and health care, in an example
of mortal systemic exclusion. The findings have important implications for existing
local and federal policy approaches to homelessness.