Episodic homelessness and health care utilization in a prospective cohort of HIV-infected persons with alcohol problems

Table 1 Demographic and Clinical Characteristics of Study Cohort (N = 349)Stratified by Housing Status at Baseline *

Categorical measures, %	Homeless N = 101	Not homeless N = 248	p-value
Female	13	24	0.02
Race/ethnicity^†			0.29
Black	38	47
Hispanic	26	21
White	37	32
High school graduate	49	65	0.005
Health insurance^‡	98	99.6	0.15
Prescribed antiretroviral medications^§	47	64	0.001
Physical injury^§	17	9	0.04
Physical or sexual abuse
Lifetime	78	82	0.40
Recent ^§	14	7	0.05
Jail ^§	36	26	0.05
Substance use^\|\|
Alcohol	45	42	0.60
Cocaine	21	25	0.36
Heroin	16	8	0.04
Continuous measures, N [std]
Age	40.8 [6.8]	40.5 [7.5]	0.70
CD4 cell count ^¶	405 [291]	399 [273]	0.90
HIV RNA (log₁₀) ^¶	47K [95K]	26K [68K]	0.05
Depressive symptoms **	27.2 [14.13]	20.2 [12.08]	< 0.0001
Addiction Severity Index: ^††
Alcohol composite score	0.25 [0.25]	0.18 [0.20]	0.009
Drug composite score	0.13 [0.12]	0.11 [0.10]	0.05

* The majority (56%)of study participants were recruited through from the Boston Medical Center HIV Diagnostic Evaluation Unit. The remaining from posted flyers 17%; Boston Medical Center Primary Care Clinic 13%; respite facility for homeless persons 5%; methadone clinic 4%; subject referrals 4%; and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center 2%.
^† Categories are not mutually exclusive, so total number will >100%
^‡ Private, Medicare, Medicaid, or special publicly funded health insurance for individuals with HIV-infection
^§ Previous 6 months
^||Previous 30 days
^¶ Laboratory tests collected as part of clinical care were used if performed within six months of the interview. When clinical samples were unavailable, the Boston Medical Center Clinical Laboratory evaluated blood samples collected for study purposes.
** Depressive symptoms were measured with the 20-item the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale
^†† Range of possible scores 0–1 with a higher score indicating worse addiction severity.

ISSN: 1472-6963