Developing an operational definition of housing instability and homelessness in Veterans Health Administration's medical records.

ABSTRACT: 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

SUBMITTER: Tsai J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9803152 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature