For more information on how we use cookies please visit our Cookie Policy , or visit our Privacy Notice page for more information on how we manage and use data. These headlines are based on initial findings of research into the age of death in homeless people carried out by the University of Sheffield and funded by the homeless charity Crisis.
This research updated research carried out 15 years ago. The new research found that the average homeless person has a life expectancy of 47, compared to 77 for the rest of the population: a startling difference of 30 years. The life expectancy for women was even lower, at just 43 years. Crisis has called on the government to address this by improving and prioritising health services for homeless people in NHS reforms. This thought-provoking research has raised an important issue that is even more relevant in winter as temperatures plummet.
Its findings are similar to those in recent government reports that have looked at health and death rates of homeless people, highlighting problems that they have accessing healthcare. The media coverage around this research emphasised the stark difference between life expectancy of the homeless population in England and the rest of the population.
The life expectancy of the homeless in England was reported to be similar to that of inhabitants in the war-stricken Democratic Republic of Congo, in central Africa. In our study a homeless person is defined as any person who ever remained overnight at the Shelter for the Homeless in Olsztyn during the years — It should be remembered, however, that some homeless people may have never appeared in the shelter roofless homeless , may have lived and died anywhere within the city of Olsztyn.
We are unable to identify such people. Another point that should be taken into consideration when analyzing our data is the fact that homelessness is not a constant parameter. A person who was homeless in , may have died a few years later as a patient in a nursing home, and yet is recorded in our database. Moreover, although homeless people constitute the poorest social class, it is possible that in singular cases particular individuals may have changed their economic status in the analyzed period.
We believe, however, that if such an error actually exists, it is minimal. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. PLoS One. Published online Dec Jeffrey Shaman, Editor. Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Received Jun 26; Accepted Dec 5.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Abstract Background The homeless constitute a subpopulation particularly exposed to atmospheric conditions, which, in the temperate climate zone, can result in both cold and heat stress leading to the increased mortality hazard.
Materials and methods The retrospective analysis is based on data concerning homeless people, out of which died in the analyzed period — Results The average life span of a homeless person was shorter by about Conclusions Our results indicate excessive mortality among the homeless as well as the weak and rather typical influence of atmospheric conditions on mortality rates in this subpopulation, except for a greater risk of cold related deaths than in the general population.
Introduction The average life span in the general population keeps increasing in Europe. Materials and methods Study population The retrospective analysis was based on data collected by the Shelter for the Homeless in Olsztyn Poland recording people who stayed overnight in the shelter in the period — Meteorological data To establish weather conditions in Olsztyn in the analyzed period, meteorological parameters recorded by the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management in Poland were examined.
Statistical analysis The data were statistically analyzed to find out the relationship between deaths among the homeless and meteorological variables. Results Demographic section In the analyzed group of deceased homeless people, Table 1 Demographic data of the deceased homeless. Open in a separate window. Weather conditions In the analyzed period hot and very hot days occurred from April till September, with the largest number in July, their mean number amounting to 29 and 9 days, respectively.
Fig 1. Number of characteristic days in — by thermal categories. Fig 2. Table 4 Relative risks RR of mortality among the homeless population due to cold and heat stress exposed group in comparison to thermoneutral conditions control group. Fig 3. Two-way cluster bi-cluster diagram of the monthly UTC indices and a number of deaths among the homeless as a result of group A causes excluding smoking A , group A causes with smoking B and group B causes C.
Discussion Literature sources referred to in the introductory section indicate that the average life span of a homeless person is shorter by 16—28 years than the values observed in the general population, and ranges from 48 to 51 years. Conclusions Our findings point to excessive death rates among the homeless. Limitations In our study a homeless person is defined as any person who ever remained overnight at the Shelter for the Homeless in Olsztyn during the years — Supporting information S1 Data Aggregate dataset.
XLSX Click here for additional data file. Data Availability All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
References 1. Poland CSOo. Life expectancy Mortality and life expectancy in homeless men and women in Rotterdam: — Mortality among homeless people in France, — Eur J Public Health.
Hwang SW. Mortality among men using homeless shelters in Toronto, Ontario. Mortality among homeless adults in Boston: shifts in causes of death over a year period. Homelessness, health status, and health care use. American Journal of Public Health. Drug and alcohol dependence.
Cent Eur J Public Health. Pathways into homelessness: recently homeless adults problems and service use before and after becoming homeless in Amsterdam. BMC Public Health. From substance use to homelessness or vice versa? Nicotine, alcohol and drug dependence and psychiatric comorbidity.
Results of a national household survey. Br J Psychiatry. The prevalence of mental disorders among the homeless in western countries: systematic review and meta-regression analysis. PLoS Med. Medina-Ramon M, Schwartz J. Temperature, temperature extremes, and mortality: a study of acclimatisation and effect modification in 50 US cities.
Occup Environ Med. Individual-level and community-level effect modifiers of the temperature-mortality relationship in 66 Chinese communities. BMJ Open. Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study. Characterizing the relationship between temperature and mortality in tropical and subtropical cities: a distributed lag non-linear model analysis in Hue, Viet Nam, — Glob Health Action.
Seasonal patterns of mortality in relation to social factors. I remember Cliff, the talented photographer and vegetarian, conscripted to eating American cheese sandwiches in the shelter, even as his health failed due to cancer.
These, and so many others, were our friends, our colleagues, our family members, who became victims of a lack of affordable housing. People who experience homelessness have an average life expectancy of around 50 years of age , almost 20 years lower than housed populations. The Center for Disease Control CDC states that people experiencing homelessness are at a greater risk of infectious and chronic illness, poor mental health, and substance abuse.
They are also more susceptible to violence once experiencing homelessness, a fact confirmed by over 20 years of reports on bias-motivated crimes against people experiencing homelessness showing 1, reported acts of violence against people experiencing homelessness, of which were lethal.
In , there were 22 cities that reported the number of people experience homelessness who lost their lives without a place to call home. County since has now surpassed 5, In Multnomah County, Portland , people have died on the streets since In San Diego County, since In San Francisco County, since These are real numbers by health officials. The City of Philadelphia released a new report on Dec. For , people were memorialized by local advocates. Thousands more are dying on the streets annually across America.
No one should die without a safe place to call home in the richest nation in the world. These are our mothers, fathers, sons and daughters.
They are our neighbors and friends, citizens of the United States of America. These deaths can be traced directly to the federal government choosing not to prioritize housing justice — leaving millions of Americans to fend for themselves and experience the hell that is homelessness.
Since the s, feds have cut billions of dollars for housing for people with low-incomes, leaving local communities to carry the water for what was once a federal priority and abandoning the idea of housing as public infrastructure that supports society.
For the better part of a decade, the age at which people experiencing homelessness die has been a shockingly consistent average of about 50 years old across the nation.
People who are homeless have roughly the same life expectancy as a resident of the United States in
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