Goal & Concept
Goal
The goal of this exercise is to explore the characteristics of the Washington, DC Metropolitan area homeless population, and the relationship between homelessness and several measures of health. Frequency distributions, crosstabulation, and comparison of means will be used.
Concept
Homelessness is the most visible and extreme consequence of poverty. The number of homeless persons in the U.S. is difficult to measure due to transience, seasonal fluctuation, and movement in and out of homelessness. Similarly, it is difficult to measure demographic characteristics of the homeless and how they are affected by their living conditions.
Examples of research questions about homelessness:
- What are the trends in homelessness rates?
- Who are the homeless?
- Why do people become homeless?
- How does drug or alcohol addiction relate to homelessness?
- What is the impact of homelessness on a person's physical and mental health?
- What factors influence the rate of homelessness?
- What services are needed to address the needs of the homeless?
Dataset
Data for this exercise come from the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area Drug Study, 1991: Homeless and Transient Population. Research was conducted in 1991 to assess the extent of the drug problem in one metropolitan area. The study included groups not typically included or under-represented in household surveys. The Homeless and Transient Population subset focuses on the homeless and transient population aged 12 and older in the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Statistical Area (DC MSA), with respondents drawn from shelters, soup kitchens and food banks, and major cluster encampments. The study provides information on respondents' history of homelessness, substance abuse and treatment, mental and physical health, employment and finances, illegal activities and arrests, and demographic characteristics.
This exercise uses the following variables:
- Sex (SEX)
- Race (RACE)
- Age (CATAGE)
- Education (EDUCCAT)
- Wprk status (WORK)
- Head of family (MCKFAM)
- Number of minor children (J12)
- Drug user before homeless (DRUGFRST)
- Pattern of drug use (ANYUSE)
- Pattern of heavy alcohol use (ALCUSEHV)
- Physical illness (MCKILL)
- Number of psychological problems in past month (MHSM30_C)
Application
For this exercise you will explore characteristics of the homeless, as well as the relationship between homelessness and various measures of health. You will use frequencies, crosstabulation, and comparison of means.
Who Are the Homeless?
Look at the frequency distributions of SEX and RACE. What percentage of the sample is male? What racial group constitutes the largest proportion of the sample?
Now examine the frequency distribution of EDUCCAT. What percentage of respondents has graduated from high school? What percentage has had at least some college? Do you find this surprising?
The variable WORK shows the percentages of respondents who are employed (part or full time), unemployed but looking for work, and not working. What percentage of the sample is employed? What percentage is unemployed? Is this what you expected?
The variable MCKFAM shows whether the respondent is a family head. Run a crosstab of MCKFAM and SEX. What do the results show? What percentage of men, compared to women, is a family head?
Variable J12 measures respondents' number of children under the age of 18. Run a comparison of means of J12 by SEX. How many children, on average, do homeless women have? What about homeless men?
Homelessness and Health
Run a crosstab of RACE by DRUGFRST,which measures whether respondents were using drugs before they became homeless. Do most respondents report having been drug users before becoming homeless? Are there significant differences between racial groups?
Next run a similar analysis between DRUGFRST and the age variable CATAGE. What do the results show here? What percentage of 12-17 year-olds reports having been drug users, compared to other age groups? Is this what you expected?
The variable ANYUSE measures whether each respondent is a current drug user, a past drug user, or a non-user. Take a look at the frequency distribution of ANYUSE. What percentage of respondents report currently using drugs? What percentage says they no longer use drugs?
Examine the frequency table of ALCUSEHV, which measures patterns of alcohol use. What percentage of respondents are heavy alcohol users? What percentage does not drink at all?
The variable MCKILL was used to assess the physical health of the respondents. Take a look at the crosstab of MCKILL and SEX. What percentage of respondents report being physically ill? Do more women report being ill than men, and if so by what margin?
Finally, respondents' mental health was measured by the variable MHSM30_C which asked how many psychological problems respondents have had in the past month. Look at the frequency distribution of MHSM30_C. What percentage of respondents reports no psychological problems?
Interpretation & Summary
Think about your answers to the application questions before you click through to the interpretation guide for help in answering them.
Who are the Homeless?
What percentage of the homeless are men? What percentage of the homeless population are White, Black, and Hispanic, respectively?
What percentage of respondents has graduated high school? What percentage has had at least some college?
What percentage of the homeless is working, either part time or full time? What percentage is unemployed?
What percentage of homeless men consider themselves 'family head' compared to women? On average, how many minor children do men have? How many do women have?
Homelessness and Health
Do most respondents report having been drug users before becoming homeless? Are there significant differences between the various racial groups? How does age relate to respondents' drug use before they became homeless? What percentage of respondents report currently using drugs? What percentage says they no longer use drugs?
What percentage of respondents are heavy alcohol users? What percentage does not drink at all?
What percentage of respondents reports being physically ill? Do more women report being ill than men, and if so by what margin?
How widespread are psychological problems among the homeless? What percentage of respondents report suffering from psychological problems?
Interpretation
Things to think about in interpreting the results:
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It is important to look at the amount of missing data in each relationship and think about the ways in which that might affect the generalizability of the results.
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Remember that the data are setting-specific; they are only representative of the Washington, DC, metropolitan area.
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The numbers in each row of the comparison of means tables show the mean value of the dependent variable for each group. For example the variable J12 shows that homeless fathers have an average of .71 minor children living with them.
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The numbers in each cell of the crosstabulation tables show the percent of the people who fall into the overlapping categories, followed by the actual number of people that represent this sample. The coloring in the tables demonstrates how the observed numbers in each cell compare to the expected number if there were no association between the two variables. The accompanying bar charts display the patterns visually as well.
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The use of column percentages, as shown in these tables, allows for the comparison of answers to the "outcome" of interest across values of the grouping variable. For example, the variable WORK shows that 8.3% of the homeless is disabled and not able to work.
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The homeless are a particularly difficult population to locate and survey because they are transient and their numbers fluctuate from month to month and season to season. To survey as many of the homeless as they could, the researchers in this study visited shelters, soup kitchens, homeless encampments and other places over several months and the same people might have been interviewed more than once. To account for all these factors (multiple interviews, fluctuating numbers, etc.) researchers created a weight (a mathematical formula) that was used in all the analyses presented in this guide. The use of the weight explains why the results tables may contain observed numbers seemingly inconsistent with the study sample size.
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Three quarters (75.9%) of the homeless are males, and Blacks make up 75.8% of the sample, followed by 16.5% Whites, and 7.6% Hispanics and other racial groups.
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Almost 40% (39.1%) have a high school diploma, and 15% have had at least some college.
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A quarter (24.2%) of the homeless surveyed are employed either part or full time, 8.3% are unable to work due to a disability, and 57.5% are unemployed.
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60.3% of the homeless women surveyed are family heads, with an average of 1.99 minor children. By comparison, only 10.7% of men are 'family heads' and they have an average of 0.71 children.
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With the only exception of 12-17 year olds, the vast majority of respondents report that they were drug users before they became homeless. For example, 97.8% of Whites, 92.4% of Blacks and 80.6% of Hispanics say that they used drugs. The numbers are similar across all age groups except for the youngest. 34.3% of the homeless report still using drugs.
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93.4% of respondents say that they drink alcohol, and one quarter of those report being heavy users.
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A majority of the homeless report being in poor health. 67.7% of men and 79% of women say that they are physically ill.
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62.1% report suffering from psychological problems.
Reading the results:
The analyses show the following:
Summary
The goal of this exercise was to gain a better understanding of who the homeless are and to explore the relationship between homelessness and various measures of health. Taken together the results show that most of the homeless in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area tend to be Black males, almost two thirds of the respondents have a least a high school diploma, and one third are employed. Almost two thirds of homeless women are mothers with children and large numbers of respondents have a lifetime history of substance abuse. Lastly, over two thirds of those who are homeless are physically ill and suffer from psychological problems.
Homelessness: A Data-Driven Learning Guide
Bibliography
We have compiled a list of references (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/cgi/CITATIONS/search?study={id}&method=study&path=OLC) that might be useful to instructors and students wishing to further explore this topic. All were chosen because they relate to the topic of study, whether or not they use the specific dataset that was used in this exercise. Some relate directly to the concepts as defined by the exercise, others explore the topic more broadly either conceptually or empirically. For even more resources, try a key word search in the ICPSR Bibliography (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ICPSR/citations/)!
