Homelessness: A Data-Driven Learning Guide

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?

Note: The online data analysis system (DAS) used on this site uses a system called Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA), developed and maintained by the Computer-assisted Survey Methods Program (CSM) at the University of California, Berkeley. Documentation for DAS/SDA can be found on their Web site.

Goal & Concept - Dataset - Application - Interpretation & Summary - Bibliography