Homeless person and health - Essay Example

As Hudson and Nandy found out in their research, homeless youth registered a higher level of substance abuse (178). In this essay, I will compare various views of different authors about health and homelessness, and compare their study findings and assumptions about the same, to establish how they agree or disagree about various aspects in health and homelessness. Hudson and Nandy compared different health issues among homeless people. These are substance abuse and high-risk sexual behaviour (178).

In their study, they aimed at establishing the rate of substance abuse, high-risk sexual behaviour, and depression symptoms among youth, who were homeless. McNeil on the other hand, in his research, aimed at finding out how substance abuse among homeless people was a health concern among the population in Canada. In another study, Walls and Bell studied the correlates of the young and adult homeless youth, in engaging in survival sex. Finally, Nicholson, et al in their study, used a generalized approach to study the overall health situation of the homeless in Downtown Calgary.

The findings of the different researches mainly agree about different health aspects and situations of the studied homeless populations. First, Hudson and Nandy pointed out that both the homeless youth exposed to foster care and those not exposed to foster care use tobacco, alcohol, and other illicit substances. They also studied the variance of depression and risky sexual behaviours among the group. However, only their degree of use varied within these groups. While the homeless youth who had previously been exposed to foster care used more drugs, compared to those not exposed to foster care.

They have argued that when youth are rendered homeless, they always suffer from anxiety and depression. Since these cannot access health care while on the streets, they turn to “self-medication” through use of drugs and alcohol