Student Research Ideas
If you are interested in learning more about homelessness and contributing new knowledge to the field, here are some ideas you may want to consider for an Honour’s or Master’s thesis.
- Health care systems are organized differently around the world. Conduct a scoping review of hospitalization reports for people experiencing homelessness across different countries. What, if any, relationships exist between the rates of hospital access and the type of health care system? You may wish to use this website to learn more about the different types of health care systems around the world: Country Profiles | Commonwealth Fund
- Standard hospital discharge protocols are not always well-suited to the unique needs of patients experiencing homelessness, which leads to higher rates of readmission. Select a hospital in your area and review their publicly available discharge information. Following a thorough literature review on homelessness, social determinants of health, and hospital discharge, identify areas that could be adapted within the policies to make them more appropriate for people experiencing homelessness in your community.
- There are two research studies discussed in this chapter that point to different outcomes. Wiens et al., (2021a) show that when people are housed their health care use initially increases but then decreases over time. Conversely, Hinds et al., (2018) found that when people are housed their use of health care services initially decreases but then gets higher over time. Both of these findings are true, despite being contradictory. Conduct a literature review to learn more about the relationship between housing status and health care usage. Based on your findings, what do you think might account for these two different study outcomes?
