Homeless mortality in Harris County in 2008

Little research has been on homeless mortality, but what has been done indicates that homeless people have higher mortality rates than the general population. Homeless decedents in Harris County in 2008 who were referred to the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office (HCMEO) were described by age, race/ethnicity, sex, and marital status and compared to the homeless population as enumerated by the Coalition of the Homeless (COH) in 2007. Of the 47 decedents, eight (17%) were female and 39 (83%) were male, 24 (51.1%) were non-Hispanic white, 11 (23.4%) were black, and 12 (25.5%) were Hispanic, none of the decedents were listed as married, however, a large number (29, 61.5%) were listed as “unknown,” and the average age of decedents was 50 years, six years older than the average of 44 years in the general homeless population. Most common causes of death were injuries, which included motor vehicle accidents, homicides and suicides and poisonings, (acute overdose and chronic substance use). Homeless decedents were representative to the larger Harris County homeless population. ^

Homeless access to dental health care: Creation of a dental service model

This project involved developing a model for planning a dental emergency treatment center that could function as an embedded component of a shelter for the homeless population. The dental services provided by such a clinic should include treatment for tooth pain, dental caries or cavities, chipped or broken teeth, broken partials, abscessed teeth, emergency cleanings, periodontal disease or gum disease and fillings. These are the dental services that are most often sought by homeless people in hospital emergency rooms.^ The underlying assumption for this project was that the oral health needs of the homeless community can most effectively be addressed by implementing small dental clinics in existing facilities that provide shelter and other services for this population. The model described in this project identifies oral health care services that would be provided by the clinic, facility (physical plant) requirements and associated infrastructure to operate an embedded dental clinic, methods for obtaining funding, strategies of recruiting dental professionals to staff the facility, and methods to assess the outcomes of the embedded clinic strategy. As an example, this project describes a strategy for developing such an embedded clinic at San Antonio Metropolitan Ministries SAMM shelter based on recommendations from community health care leaders, managers of homeless shelters, members of the homeless community and dental professionals^