Infants Exposed To Homelessness: Health, Health Care Use, And Health Spending From Birth To Age Six
UMass Chan Affiliations
Commonwealth Medicine, Center for Health Law and PolicyDepartment of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences
Department of Family Medicine and Community Health
Document Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2019-05-01Keywords
homelessnesspoverty
maternal and child health
social determinants of health
Community Health and Preventive Medicine
Health Economics
Health Law and Policy
Health Policy
Health Services Administration
Health Services ResearchMaternal and Child HealthPreventive Medicine
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Homeless infants are known to have poor birth outcomes, but the longitudinal impact of homelessness on health, health care use, and health spending during the early years of life has received little attention. Linking Massachusetts emergency shelter enrollment records for the period 2008-15 with Medicaid claims, we compared 5,762 infants who experienced a homeless episode with a group of 5,553 infants matched on sex, race/ethnicity, location, and birth month. Infants born during a period of unstable housing resulting in homelessness had higher rates of low birthweight, respiratory problems, fever, and other common conditions; longer neonatal intensive care unit stays; more emergency department visits; and higher annual spending. Differences in most health conditions persisted for two to three years. Asthma diagnoses, emergency department visits, and spending were significantly higher through age six. While screening and access to health care can be improved for homeless infants, long-term solutions require a broader focus on housing and income.Source
Health Aff (Millwood). 2019 May;38(5):721-728. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2019.00090. Link to article on publisher's site
DOI
10.1377/hlthaff.2019.00090Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/27005PubMed ID
31059358Related Resources
Rights
Copyright Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc. This open access article is distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license.Distribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc. This open access article is distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license.
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