Mental Health and Homelessness — is There a Link?

Reliable and large-scale assessments of the mental health and psychiatric burden among homeless teens have been explored by a study at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, published in JAMA. The present study team evaluated the mental health and substance use among these homeless high school students in 2019. Over one in 20 U.S. high school students were estimated to experience homelessness in 2016 and 2017, as per a 2018 report from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Mental Health and Homelessness

“Our study found that homeless adolescents experienced significantly worse mental health and more substance use than their housed counterparts. The U.S. is facing a youth homelessness crisis, which will only be exacerbated by challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, including parental deaths, housing evictions, and worsening poverty. We need to implement policies and interventions that improve broad health, social, and educational outcomes among homeless adolescents, and perhaps more importantly, prevent and end adolescent homelessness altogether,” says corresponding author Rishi K. Wadhera, Harvard Medical School.

“The burden of homelessness falling disproportionately on Black, Hispanic, and LGBTQIA+ individuals, which reflects enduring structural injustices such as racism, homophobia, and transphobia in the US. We need to do a better job of identifying these students and connecting them to evidence-based interventions such as stable housing and mental health support,” says first author Michael Liu, Harvard Medical School.

Source-Medindia