Tricia Rosetti, Content Marketer | February 09, 2024
A recent analysis of a housing instability program in Boston found the intervention reduced outpatient and primary care visits and led to mental and physical health benefits.
Participation in housing instability programs is associated with reduced health care use, according to a recent study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The hospital announced the study findings, conducted by a research team from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, this week.
For the study, published in Health Affairs, the research team analyzed the outcomes of 1,139 patients with housing-related needs extending beyond homelessness between October 2018 and March 2021. They examined participating patients’ utilization of health care services and chronic disease management, patient charts for data on housing issues, services, and outcomes, and conducted interviews to learn about their living situations, health staties, and social supports.
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The program featured a social care team, consisting of housing advocates, community resource specialists, community health workers, and a medical-legal partner, to support patients at any of the 15 Brigham Health primary care sites throughout the Boston metro area with their housing related social needs. The program helped patients who were experiencing homelessness, facing eviction, or living in unsafe housing conditions.
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The study revealed that patients enrolled in the primary care-based housing program had 2.5 fewer primary care visits and 3.6 fewer outpatient visits in a year compared with those not enrolled in the program. Patients enrolled in the program also reported improved mental and physical health outcomes as well as stronger connections with their physicians. Patients who participated in the program were predominantly female, non-white, non-English-speaking, and had more chronic conditions and higher emergency room use than the general population.
“It is very hard to get a patient’s blood pressure under control if they are worried about where they are going to sleep,” said the study’s lead author MaryCatherine Arbour, M.D., MPH, the medical director of the social care team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Primary Care Center, in the announcement. “A person’s health is extremely at risk if their housing is unstable. And since the pandemic, there has been an enormous increase in housing needs.”