Question

The public health department has struggled with developing strategies to address health related problems among homeless population for decades. The Public Health Nurse (PHN) supervisor has assigned you and a co-worker to provide community/public health services in a city downtown. Discuss reasons why homelessness is rising. Describe factors that create barriers to provision of community health nursing services among homeless populations.

Answer 1

Causes and reasons of homelessness are (1) lack of affordable housing

, (2) unemployment

, (3) poverty,

(4) mental illness and the lack of needed services

(5) substance abuse and the lack of needed services.

While the health of individuals experiencing homelessness is determined by a large number of factors beyond healthcare, the focus of this study is on the role of primary healthcare. Primary healthcare is defined as “essential healthcare, based on practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology, made universally available to individuals and families in the community through their full participation and at a cost that the community and country can afford to maintain at every stage of their development in the spirit of self-reliance and self-determination” [3]. Another widely used definition describes it as an individual’s first point of contact with the healthcare system

#Barriers preventing access to healthcare services are-

1)Patient-level: emotional barriers

2) Patient level: patient knowledge and priority setting

3)Provider-level: environmental barriers and discrimination

4)System level barriers: financial barriers

5)System level barriers: other structural barriers