Sitting in the waiting room: do people experiencing homelessness underutilize health services?

ABSTRACT Homeless persons tend to have poorer health than the broader population, and thus have a greater need for health services. However, due to resource constraints impeding access to health care, and the chaotic nature of living as a homeless person, this most disadvantaged group may face greater difficulties accessing health services. We use an Australian panel survey, Journeys Home, to contrast health service use by people experiencing homelessness with service use by a similarly vulnerable, yet formally housed group where we can also control for health-related needs. The paper measures the extent to which transitional and enduring homelessness is related to health service usage controlling for differences in health needs; and investigates whether any differences confirm prior research findings which suggest that individuals suffering homelessness are heavy users of support services (e.g., hospital admissions) but light users of primary health services (e.g., general practitioners (GPs) and dentists) that are an important gateway to specialist services.