Background: Almost 20% of the US population are housing insecure (HI) due to inadequate living conditions, imbalanced costs to income, nonsustainable shelter, or overcrowding. Housing insecure and physical trauma share similar risk factors, but their direct association is not well elucidated. The objective of our study was to determine the prevalence of HI in survivors of traumatic injury.
Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study at an urban, level 1 trauma center. A survey on social determinants of health was administered to adult patients, and demographic, injury specifics, and clinical outcomes data were collected. HI was defined by affirmative answers to questions related to history of homelessness or concern about sustainable shelter. The cohort was stratified by HI; groups were compared using the Mann-Whitney U and Fisher exact tests, as appropriate.
Results: Of 116 study participants, four were excluded due to missing data. Of the 112, 42 (37.8%) reported HI and most were black (69%) males (73.8%). There were no demographic differences between groups. Conversely, HI patients had a higher rate of penetrating traumatic injury (34.1% vs 14.5%, P-value = .03) and were significantly less educated compared to secure participants (P-value = .03) [no degree (26.2% vs 10.3%), high school degrees (21.4% vs 41.2%)] with concomitant illicit drug use (63.4% vs 27.9%, P < .001), and history of addiction (52.4% vs 7.2%, P < .001).
Conclusion: HI far exceeds national averages in our cohort. Although difficult to ascertain a cause-effect relationship, HI may be a modifiable risk factor for trauma that negatively influences outcomes.
Keywords: clinical outcomes; homelessness; injury; social determinants of health; trauma.