Rajeev Choudhury

Homeless and prisoners in the United States are more likely to be hospitalised, and die due to COVID19 compared to the general population, researchers in a recently published study say.

The study titled, Hospitalizations for COVID19 among US People Experiencing Incarceration or Homelessness was published in the journal “JAMA Open Network” and authored by researchers from COVID19 emergency response teams of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that homeless people are 1.3 times more likely to suffer from serious COVID19 incidences and need to be hospitalised as compared to the general population.

Similarly, the imprisoned people are 1.2 times more likely to suffer from serious COVID19 disease compared to the general population, they added.

The main reason behind their increased susceptibility lies in the fact that both these groups need to share living spaces, the study noted.

Using data from the Premier Healthcare Database on 3,415 people experiencing incarceration (PEI) and 9,434 people experiencing incarceration or homelessness (PEH) who were evaluated in the emergency department or were hospitalised in more than 800 US hospitals for COVID19 from April 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021, the researchers found that hospitalisation among the PEI and PEH groups were 63.5% 64.5% respectively, compared to 49.7% among the general population.

Similarly, the mortality rate among PEIs was 14.2% against 13.6% for the general population. However, in the case of the PEH, the mortality at 5.4% was considerably lower than the general population, the paper noted.

Both PEI and PEH had longer hospital stays (9 days for PEI and 11  days for PEH) and a higher frequency of readmission, with homeless people being liable to get readmitted to the hospitals twice as compared to the general populations, the researchers of the study noted.

“The high rates of COVID19 hospitalisations among PEI and PEH reinforce the importance of COVID19 prevention measures for these disproportionately affected populations; in the long term, reducing COVID19 hospitalizations among PEI and PEH will require continued partnerships among homeless services, correctional facilities and agencies, health care professionals, and public health agencies to ensure that COVID19 vaccinations and other prevention measures are implemented equitably for PEI and PEH,” the researchers concluded.