Health Issues Faced by Homeless People in the UK (HS2024)

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report analyzes health issues among homeless people in the UK.

RESEARCH TOPIC- WHAT HEALTH ISSUES DO HOMELESS PEOPLE FACE?
Contents
RESEARCH TOPIC- WHAT HEALTH ISSUES DO HOMELESS PEOPLE FACE?......................................1
INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................1
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES...............................................................................................................1
LITERATURE REVIEW..................................................................................................................2
STUDY DESIGN AND METHOD....................................................................................................3
DATA COLLECTION..................................................................................................................... 4
DATA ANALYSIS..........................................................................................................................5
LIMITATIONS..............................................................................................................................5
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS........................................................................................................5
TEMPORAL PLAN........................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................................8
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INTRODUCTION
Homelessness is referred to as the condition or circumstance of a person when he may not
have a permanent place to dwell in (Fitzpatrick et al, 2015). living without a permanent or
proper home is the condition that majorly arises due to the financial crisis in one's life. Such
people lack a source of solid income that may ensure them a proper and permanent dwelling.
Homelessness in the UK is not just considered as having no space to live or not able to afford a
house but it is more precisely considered as having loss of identity, security, loss of sense of
belonging and emotional well-being. Homeless people can be considered as one that lives on
the street, sleep in homeless shelters, vehicles, cardboard boxes etc. the 2005 survey showed
that around 100 million people throughout the world were homeless that is 1 in every 65 men
on earth was leading a life as a homeless person. In the UK in the year 2016, the homelessness
was estimated to have affected about 250,000 people (Authority, 2015). One important feature
noticed while studying homeless individual was that the average age of death in homeless
people in the UK was 47 years that is very low as compared to a normal individual that is 77
years (Wilcox and Perry, 2014). This shows that homelessness has some health implication and
affects the health of an individual in some or the other manner. It not only affects physical
health but also has a great impact on an individual's mental well-being. These health issues
faced by the homeless person make them vulnerable to early death. This research aims to focus
on different types of health issues faced by a homeless person. It will also discuss with help of
wide literature why these issues are common among homeless individual and not for the
remaining population. It is important to research this topic as the homeless are being a rising
issue in the world and it is important for policymakers to ensure better plans for them to
reduce death and health issues due to homelessness.
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AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Aim
The aim of this research is to critically analyze the types of health issues faced by homeless
people in the UK.
Objectives
 To analyze the different health issues faced due to homelessness
 To analyze the effects of homelessness on the health of an individual
 To evaluate the strategies present for a homeless individual in the UK
 To recommend plans for promoting health for homeless people
LITERATURE REVIEW
A literature review is the process of collection of data from pre-existing literature available on
various databases and journals, articles as well as government links. The data is then reviewed
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to formulate an academic review that is easy to conduct and is very useful in order to provide
elaborated knowledge regarding existing data on the topic.
Viner et al, (2012) in their study determine that social factors are associated with the health
status of an individual and one of which involves homelessness. A home is considered to be the
source of shelter and security as well the factor that ensures the identity of the individual in the
society loss of home or lack of home makes a person unwell physically as well as mentally. It
was found that income inequalities and financial crisis were major factors associated with
homelessness and due to which the health of the homeless person was affected. The homeless
individual was more prone to suffer from diseases that are infectious in nature as well as they
were prone to suffer from severe mental illness and depression.
Another research by Saddichha, Linden and Krausz, (2014) showed that in Canada the majority
of homeless people being youth suffered from physical and mental comorbidities to a higher
level as compared to their counterparts. Youth constitutes about 16.5% of the total homeless
population in the area. It was also seen that unlike adults who were homeless the majority of
young individuals who were homeless were females and were aboriginal. It was seen that
sexually transmitted disease prevalence in this individual was present but at a lower level but
the presence of physical illness and psychiatric comorbidities was found at a high rate in the
homeless individual. This concluded that strategies have to be firm to eradicate homelessness
and ensure better health to such individuals.
The survey by Garrett, (2012) reveals how homelessness created direct burden over health and
social care services and was more prone to suffer from health issues. The study revealed that
having a house added change to the health care requirement of an individual. It was seen that
when people involve in housing their health issues reduces and their requirement for
healthcare services also lowers with improved health outcomes. It was seen that a homeless
person visited the emergency department for about 5 times annually and the frequent user
even more than that. It was indicating that without health insurance homeless people could not
access the services for their psychological treatment or other facilities that make them have
deteriorating health and visit emergency again and again. It was also noticed that homeless
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people had more cases of chronic health issues than another normal individual, such as
hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, psychiatric disorder, HIV, bronchitis, asthma
etc. also it is seen that the visit of homeless people to emergency is made for diseases that
could have been prevented easily by better preventive care. All this findings shows how
homeless individual faces a variety of health issues that are mainly caused due to their poor
financial condition and inability to spend or access better health and social care services. The
survey also reported how in last year about 20 million people who are a homeless required
treatment for substance abuse and about 10.6 million of them required help with their mental
well-being but they were not capable to receive services that could help them. As well the
programme that enhanced housing for homeless people makes it evident that it was successful
in reducing the health implications caused due to homelessness making homelessness directly
proportional to ill health (Libman, Fields and Saegert, 2012.).
STUDY DESIGN AND METHOD
Study design and method are referred to the plan of how the study is conducted by the author.
It is referred to as the design laid out initially for stepwise orientation of the study to answer
the main research question. There are mainly two methods of research that is primary and
secondary that is further divided into qualitative and quantitative study designs. Primary
research is the one which uses the main concept and performs different experimental methods
to find the relevant answer to formulate the hypothesis for the study whereas, the secondary
research are those that use methods such as literature review where the already existing data
on the topic is reviewed and conceptualized to formulate a hypothesis (Wilcox et al, 2012).
Qualitative research is the one where numerical values are collected and compared together
whereas quantitative research is one that does not contain any numerical calculations or data
and is based on subjective theoretical data. This research will use the secondary qualitative
approach with help of literature review to answer the research question and formulate the
conclusion.
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DATA COLLECTION
Data collection is the process by which the author of the researcher collects data for the study
and this data is used to analyze the findings. Data collection can be done by different methods
depending on the nature of the research design (Neuman, 2013). Primary data collection
methods include experimental data collection that is by conducting interviews, in-depth
interviews, group discussions, focus groups, survey, questionnaire etc. the data is collected in
this type of study by selecting a sample size extracting data from them for the given topic may
be with observation, or interview. The secondary data collection method includes a literature
review that is done by collecting data from already existing literature. The pre-existing
literature searches by means of keywords that are fed in databases such as Google Scholar,
PubMed, Medline or Cinahl (Grimmer and Stewart, 2013). These databases provide various
results based on the keywords fed and the results are sorted and narrowed down by applying
the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The given research is secondary in nature so the data
collected is from the Google Scholar and PubMed where the pre-existing literature was
reviewed and a literature review for framed accordingly. The inclusion criteria were applying
that allowed only internationally published and peer-reviewed articles to be selected for review
and the others were rejected.
The study initiated by feeding the keywords in the database that is Google Scholar, the
keywords for this study were used- Homelessness, UK, health issues, cause. The initial result
was 72,500 articles. Further inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied and the search was
narrowed down to 600 most relevant articles.
DATA ANALYSIS
Data analysis is referred to as the method of inspecting, cleansing, modelling and transcription
of data collected in the research to formulate the conclusion. Data analysis in research is done
to find different findings from the collected data and these findings are used to frame the result
of the study. It is the crucial part of the research as it provides a complete analysis of data and
promotes the reader to understand the results of the study better (Woodward, 2013).
Secondary data analysis has following steps first is a collection of data after collecting data
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determining the relevancy of data is important, reviewing of data is another step of analysis
and the final step is analyzing the data with help of analyzing tools such as thematic analysis
method. Thematic data analysis is the method that extracts different themes out of the data
collected that can help in formulate the conclusion and also are common among the data
collected. In this research, a thematic analysis of data is done by extracting different themes
that helped in the formation of a result and conclusion for this research question.
LIMITATIONS
The limitation is defined as the areas where the research is limited or cannot have better
approaches utilized. Every study has some limitations and it depends on the method of study,
design, data collection as well as analysis. As this research is secondary in nature there are
some common limitations one of which is the incorporation of bias and errors from the primary
articles used in the review (Seeber, 2013). Secondary research data is weak in nature and a
major cause is because the errors and limitations of the previously done research will be
incorporated into the current study making it weaker. To reduce this one can stick to inclusion
and exclusion criteria thoroughly. Other limitation includes the low scope of the study due to
secondary nature. The scope of the study in the field of enhancement and further expansion is
less.
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Ethics of research is the way how the consent of the participants is taken and their details are
kept confidential. The study includes human subjected and their personal details that are not to
be disclosed without their permission. The research has to follow the ethical code of conduct
and consider keeping all the records and information of the participants confidential that
participate in the study (Gillan and Pickerill, 2012). Even while conducting interviews and
questionnaire a signed and informed consent is taken to ensure full cooperation and complete
openness to the participant regarding the study conducted. A research cannot pass the
authentication criteria without meeting the ethical considerations set by the committee.
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TEMPORAL PLAN
TASK WEE
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Research
topic
planning
Discussio
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and
objective
Research
proposal
submissi
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Proposal
refineme
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Proposal
acceptan
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Data
collectio
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Data
analysis
Conclusi
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Final
reporting
Final
submissi
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REFERENCES
 Authority, U.S., 2015. Statistics on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping in
England. Assessment Report, 320, p.12.
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 Fitzpatrick, S., Bramley, G., Pawson, H., Watts, B. and Wilcox, S., 2015. The homelessness
monitor: England 2015. London: Crisis.
 Garrett, D.G., 2012. The business case for ending homelessness: Having a home
improves health, reduces healthcare utilization and costs. American health & drug
benefits, 5(1), p.17.
 Gillan, K. and Pickerill, J., 2012. The difficult and hopeful ethics of research on, and with,
social movements. Social Movement Studies, 11(2), pp.133-143.
 Grimmer, J. and Stewart, B.M., 2013. Text as data: The promise and pitfalls of automatic
content analysis methods for political texts. Political analysis, 21(3), pp.267-297.
 Libman, K., Fields, D. and Saegert, S., 2012. Housing and health: a social-ecological
perspective on the US foreclosure crisis. Housing, Theory and Society, 29(1), pp.1-24.
 Neuman, W.L., 2013. Social research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches.
Pearson education.
 Saddichha, S., Linden, I. and Krausz, M.R., 2014. Physical and mental health issues
among homeless youth in British Columbia, Canada: Are they different from older
homeless adults?. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry, 23(3), p.200.
 Seeber, M., 2013. Efficacy and limitations of research steering in different
disciplines. Studies in Higher Education, 38(1), pp.20-38.
 Viner, R.M., Ozer, E.M., Denny, S., Marmot, M., Resnick, M., Fatusi, A. and Currie, C.,
2012. Adolescence and the social determinants of health. The lancet, 379(9826),
pp.1641-1652.
 Wilcox, A.B., Gallagher, K.D., Boden-Albala, B. and Bakken, S.R., 2012. Research data
collection methods: from paper to tablet computers. Medical care, pp.S68-S73.
 Wilcox, S. and Perry, J., 2014. UK housing review. Coventry: Chartered Institute of
Housing.
 Woodward, M., 2013. Epidemiology: study design and data analysis. Chapman and
Hall/CRC.
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