Yale Bulletin and Calendar

August 29, 2003|Volume 32, Number 1|Two-Week Issue

Women veterans are found to be
at higher risk for homelessness

Women who have served in the military are up to four times more likely to become homeless when compared with women in the general population, a Yale researcher has found.

Women veterans now comprise 5% of the total veteran population and that number is expected to double in the coming decade, says Dr. Robert Rosenheck, professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and of Epidemiology and Public Health at the School of Medicine, one of three authors of the study.

An additional concern, he notes, is that no one seems to know why these women are more at risk.

"No consistent pattern of personal characteristics emerges that distinguishes women veterans from non-veterans or that might explain their increased risk for homelessness," says Rosenheck, who also is director of the Veterans Administration's Northeast Program Evaluation Center. "Like homeless women in the general population, women veterans who are homeless tend to share many of the same risk factors: low income; high rates of childhood abuse; post traumatic stress disorder, and self-rated poor physical health."

The researchers based their findings on three sources, including data obtained from a program to assist homeless women who have serious mental illness. The article was published in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

One reason women veterans might be at increased risk for homelessness is that they lived in their current cities for shorter periods of time than had the non-veterans, Rosenheck says. Another is that women with unstable family situations may turn voluntarily to military service as a means of escape, he notes. Once they are discharged, he explains, they lose the social ties they had in the military yet may be reluctant to return home. Similarly, male veterans who served in the all-volunteer army are more likely to become homeless than men who were drafted into the service, he notes.

The researchers plan a detailed survey of socio-demographic and clinical characteristics among women veterans and non-veterans in the general population to determine which risk factors are specific to women veterans.

Co-authors on the study are lead author Gail Gamache of the Mental Illness, Research, Education and Clinical Center of the Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Leeds, Massachusetts, as well as Richard Tessler, a consultant to the center.

-- By Jacqueline Weaver

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Computer-generated designs featured in architecture gallery

Artist's works portray Christianity through Thai art forms

Exhibit explores influences on American furniture design

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Day of Caring drive will put books into hands of area children

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