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Addressing housing insecurity as a social determinant of health: A systematic review of interventions in healthcare settings

2025· review· en· W4414040995 on OpenAlexafffund
Yan Han, Allyson Gallant, Alannah Delahunty‐Pike, Jodi Langley, Alexander Zsager, Eunice Abaga, Carolyn Ziegler, Jeff Karabanow, Stephen W. Hwang, Andrew D. Pinto

Bibliographic record

VenueSocial Science & Medicine · 2025
Typereview
Languageen
FieldHealth Professions
TopicHomelessness and Social Issues
Canadian institutionsDalhousie UniversitySt. Michael's Hospital
FundersCanadian Institutes of Health Research
KeywordsPsychological interventionHealth careSituatedPublic healthSocial determinants of healthSystematic reviewPublic health interventions

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

BACKGROUND: Stable housing is a key social determinant of health. Those experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity are known to have increased healthcare utilization and yet worse healthcare outcomes compared to securely housed individuals. Housing interventions offered via healthcare settings provide an opportunity to reach this population. We conducted a systematic review to 1) identify interventions which address housing insecurity and engage healthcare settings; 2) determine effectiveness of these interventions; and 3) ascertain common characteristics of effective interventions to inform new ways to address housing insecurity within healthcare. METHODS: Twelve databases were searched for relevant studies published from January 1, 1990-January 3, 2025. We included intervention studies aimed at meeting patients' housing needs as a primary or secondary outcome and initiated by referrals from within the healthcare system. Titles, abstracts and full-text articles were reviewed by two independent reviewers. Data were extracted relevant to study design, population, and intervention details. Quality appraisals were conducted using JBI critical appraisal tools. Discrepancies at each stage were resolved through reviewer or team discussions. RESULTS: We identified 19 studies from 12,483 unique citations. Most were randomized controlled trials and of moderate quality. Studies primarily addressed the housing needs of adults with mental health or substance use issues (n = 9; 47 %). We identified three common characteristics of housing interventions with positively-associated outcomes active community referrals (i.e. connection to a professional social worker or case manager instead of sharing passive information), incorporating multi-component interventions to address housing and additional health needs, and utilizing case management or assertive community treatment approaches. CONCLUSIONS: Interventions to address housing insecurity can be successfully situated within healthcare settings, although more research is required to examine the cost-effectiveness of such interventions. The characteristics of the interventions identified can be used to inform new housing interventions in healthcare settings to address this critical social determinant of health.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.016
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.068
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Systematic review · Consensus signal: Systematic review
GenreCandidate signal: Review · Consensus signal: Review
Teacher disagreement score0.016
Threshold uncertainty score0.085

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0160.068
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0020.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0100.008
Bibliometrics0.0120.014
Science and technology studies0.0010.001
Scholarly communication0.0030.003
Open science0.0020.002
Research integrity0.0020.002
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0050.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.281
GPT teacher head0.592
Teacher spread0.310 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designSystematic review
Domainnot available
GenreReview

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations7
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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