VA National Center on Homelessness among Veterans, Tampa, FL, United States of America.
School of Public Health, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2022 Dec 30;17(12):e0279973. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279973. eCollection 2022.
The main objective of this study was to examine how homelessness and housing instability is captured across data sources in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). Data from 2021 were extracted from three data repositories, including the Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW), the Homeless Operations Management System (HOMES), and the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). Using these three data sources, we identified the number of homeless and unstably housed veterans across a variety of indicators. The results showed that the use of diagnostic codes and clinic stop codes identified a large number of homeless and unstably housed veterans, but the use of HOMES and HMIS data identified additional homeless and unstably housed veterans to provide a complete count. A total of 290,431 unique veterans were identified as experiencing homelessness or housing instability in 2021 and there was regional variability in how homelessness and housing stability were captured across data sources, supporting the need for more uniform ways to operationalize these conditions. Together, these findings highlight the and encourage use of all available indicators and data sources to identify homelessness and housing instability in VHA. These methodologies applied to the largest healthcare system in the U.S. demonstrate their utility and possibilities for other healthcare systems. Transparent practices about data sources and indicators used to capture homelessness and housing instability should be shared to increase uniform use.
本研究的主要目的是探讨在退伍军人健康管理局（VHA）的不同数据来源中，如何捕捉无家可归和住房不稳定的情况。2021 年的数据从三个数据存储库中提取，包括企业数据仓库（CDW）、无家可归运营管理系统（HOMES）和无家可归管理信息系统（HMIS）。使用这三个数据源，我们确定了各种指标下无家可归和住房不稳定的退伍军人数量。结果表明，使用诊断代码和诊所停止代码可以识别大量无家可归和住房不稳定的退伍军人，但使用 HOMES 和 HMIS 数据可以识别更多的无家可归和住房不稳定的退伍军人，以提供完整的统计数据。在 2021 年，共有 290431 名独特的退伍军人被确定为无家可归或住房不稳定，不同数据来源对无家可归和住房稳定的捕捉存在区域差异，这支持了更统一的方法来实现这些条件的需要。这些发现共同强调了，并鼓励使用所有可用的指标和数据源来识别 VHA 中的无家可归和住房不稳定情况。这些应用于美国最大医疗保健系统的方法证明了它们在其他医疗保健系统中的效用和可能性。关于用于捕捉无家可归和住房不稳定的数据源和指标的透明做法应予以分享，以增加统一使用。
