It is the role of every government to provide equitable social utilities to its population irrespective of their social and economic background. These services include healthcare, education, and proper sanitation. However, there have been many instances where the government has neglected certain sections of the population in the provision of those amenities. Some of these groups include the homeless, people of color, and the physically or mentally challenged individuals. This leaves them exposed and unable to afford quality or adequate education, medical services, and proper sanitation. Various individuals and organizations have developed different approaches to ensure that such parts of the population are not discriminated against in service delivery. To analyze this problem, the paper has focused on homeless women as a good example of the vulnerable population. The work greatly explains the reasons why this group is considered vulnerable, existing evidence-based strategies, legislations, or policies developed to tackle its healthcare needs and the roles of collaboration between various professional entities in developing appropriate social needs programs. The paper also focuses on how addressing health social factors through social needs programs will be of much benefit not only to the homeless women but to the entire population.
Reasons Why Homeless Women Are Vulnerable
In many countries, homeless women face many challenges in accessing different social utilities. One of those services is quality healthcare which is inaccessible to many in terms of quality and quantity. There are various reasons why homeless women are considered as a vulnerable group. First, many in this category have little or lack adequate and stable sources of income. This means that they will not have enough amount of money to allow them to afford quality medical services (Bharel, Santiago, Forgione, León, & Weinreb, 2015) . This homeless group will also be unwilling to visit most of the health facilities as their charges might be higher beyond their reach. The second reason why this part of the population is considered vulnerable is due to the lack of necessities that will afford healthy living. As most in this group struggle to meet their daily needs, they may not afford proper nutrition that is essential in maintaining a healthy body. This leaves them more exposed to many lifestyle diseases as compared to the housed population. Third, homeless women have born blunt of gender and sexual-based violence for a long time. Their social-economic condition exposes them to several vices like sexual abuse and are unable to report to the relevant bodies for proper action to be taken. This condition makes them one of the highly vulnerable groups requiring proper and efficient strategies to address their issues. Fourth, homeless women may lack proper sanitation that makes them more vulnerable and highly likely to contact ailments associated with this condition. Members in this category may experience a lack of clean water, inappropriate waste disposal methods, and poor housing facilities. All those factors mean that the homeless group is likely to be exposed to many diseases as a result of poor living conditions. Lastly, homeless women may lack proper knowledge that is essential in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Due to the social and economic conditions, most of them will not have access to proper education as the costs associated with it might be too high for their reach. Some learning institutions might also not be willing to admit them to their programs thus remaining without basic education that is essential in practicing healthy living.
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Strategies, Policies, and Legislations to Address Healthcare Needs of Homeless Women
In addressing the healthcare needs of the homeless women, there various strategies government entities and other organizations need to implement. This process can be broken down into two sections which include;
Problem Identification
In this stage, the relevant stakeholders identify the underlying factors that are hindering healthcare promotion to homeless women before implementing intervention strategies. First, government agencies and other concerned organizations identify a particular health problem or concern affecting the homeless women in a certain area. Through this process, the relevant stakeholders will easily note a specific healthcare issue that is most prevalent to this group of the population and the reasons it is occurring more (Abel & Newbigging, 2018) . The strategy enables the development of appropriate intervention procedures thus minimizing wastage that might occur in addressing the problem in general terms. Secondly, the relevant stakeholders need to study the healthcare-seeking behavior of homeless women in a particular area to understand how they will approach them. Without this process, healthcare providers and other relevant bodies might fail to get a positive response when using particular intervention procedures. They must devise a strategy that homeless women are familiar with for the appropriate results.
Intervention Procedures
Shelter Based Clinics
This involves taking healthcare services to where many homeless people live. They are found in most parts of the United States in locations with a high number of these groups. Availing such clinics means that many women will be able to access medical services more conveniently as compared to when those facilities are situated away from them. The shelter-based clinics should also be cost-effective to allow as many homeless women as possible to access adequate healthcare services as possible. This can be done through collaboration between government agencies and other humanitarian organizations. The shelter-based clinics can also work with local and community leaders to identify such vulnerable groups.
Rescue Mission
The committee involved in this activity sets up volunteer clinics in various parts with a high number of homeless women. Those facilities ensure that members in this vulnerable group report various health-related issues that might not be possible with other healthcare establishments. In this strategy, the rescue mission is carried by coordination of the national governmental healthcare agencies and other non-governmental organizations like the International Union of Gospel Missions. It can also involve local organizations and community leaders to make it more effective. Those clinics are run by volunteer nurses and doctors with vast experience in community-based services. To ensure that those facilities are adequately equipped, they depend on private donations both in terms of cash and medical supplies or pharmaceuticals. However, due to religious affiliation associated with some of the organizations involved in this program, many homeless women may shy away from them.
Convalescent and Respite Care
Treatment of a patient requires him/her to be placed under specialized care to allow better healing and recovery process. In treating the homeless women, healthcare providers need to place them in a certain condition for the process to be successful. In a convalescent and respite care program, the homeless woman is allowed to recover from a disease without requiring hospital care but in a condition away from the common setting. A good example of such facilities is a church or a learning institution that sets specific buildings for such activity. The patient can get treated and stay in the facility until the recovery process is complete. Just like other programs for instance the rescue mission, the convalescent and respite care runs through donations from the private financiers and other related organizations.
Role of Inter-professional Collaboration in Developing Social Needs Program
In providing quality healthcare services to homeless women, there is a need to have a collaboration between various stakeholders. Such corporations have enabled the medical care providers to reach as many members of the vulnerable population as compared to when one entity is working on its own. Some of the advantages of inter-professional collaboration in developing social needs program include:
Improving Patient Care and Outcomes
Social needs program especially the healthcare services to the vulnerable population requires a lot of material resources and workforce to make it work. They include finances, medical professionals, and equipment for diagnosing and treatment of various ailments. It would be an overwhelming process if only one entity was involved in this program thus the need for collaboration between various stakeholders (Wood et al., 2019) . This cooperation will help the homeless women to receive improved healthcare in various facilities set to cater for their needs. Collaboration between various stakeholders will allow provision of the adequate resources and manpower for the program to succeed. It will also reduce the cost incurred by any stakeholder thus allowing the homeless women to access quality healthcare services at no cost.
Enables Faster and Efficient Treatment
Accessing the vulnerable groups sometimes requires complicated procedures for it to produce positive results. Their treatment may need testing, diagnosing, and treatment which might not be carried out effectively by one organization. It is for this reason that inter-agency collaboration finds its use. Homeless women face various healthcare problems that require an appropriate approach to solve. By various organizations coming together will allow the combining of skills and resources. This collaboration means that healthcare services will be offered at a faster rate as compared to when one organization is working alone. It means that various entities will break down the processes involved and each task allocated to a different body for efficient service delivery. Quality will also be improved as each body brings unique talent and skills to help bring quality and affordable healthcare to homeless women.
Reducing Inefficiencies and the Costs of Healthcare to the Homeless Women
When various professional bodies come together, medical errors are greatly reduced thus improving the quality of healthcare services provided. The homeless women face various health problems that require combined efforts between various stakeholders. Some of these challenges include reproductive health issues, mental health, and other chronic diseases. The healthcare providers will offer efficient services while reducing the errors that might occur as a result of one organization's multitasking. The inter-professional collaboration will bring various specialists for different health areas that generally affect homeless women. This means that the social needs program will produce more positive results and reach as many homeless women as possible.
Benefits of Addressing Social Determinants of Health to the Community
Bring Equity and Reducing Healthcare Disparities
Addressing healthcare determinants ensures that every member of the society accesses quality healthcare without being discriminated against. The vulnerable groups have been neglected for long in terms of education, health, and other social amenities. Having those determinants addressed means that various stakeholders will come up with better solutions to the health problems the vulnerable groups face especially homeless women. Due to their social-economic condition, vulnerable groups have in many years failed to afford various costs that are associated with seeking healthcare services from various establishments. It would be appropriate to identify where such disparities occur to identify the resources needed to bring equity.
Housing and Employment Support
Many of the homeless women lack proper housing thus depending on facilities with poor living conditions for shelter. This condition exposes them to factors that can contribute to the spread of diseases. Government agencies and other related organizations can come up with strategies that will help improve housing conditions. This includes setting up facilities that offer refuge especially to homeless women under high risk of contracting certain diseases for instance young mothers. Another problem those vulnerable groups face is the lack of a stable source of income to meet their needs. They are also not able to afford the costs associated with quality healthcare. By addressing social determinants, the government and other organizations can develop strategies that will allow homeless women to secure better employment terms in order to meet their needs. Such initiatives mean that the vulnerable group affords medication or better nutrition which is essential to good health. Homeless women also face a major challenge in terms of mental health. Placing them in programs that give them a chance to earn an income means that mental health illnesses will significantly reduce as unemployment is one of the major contributing factors.
Conclusion
Homeless women fall under the category of vulnerable groups for various reasons. They include a lack of a stable source of income, inadequate supply of necessities, and high exposure to gender-based abuse. Another reason why homeless women are considered vulnerable is the lack of proper sanitation and housing which exposes them to various diseases. All these reasons mean that the government and other organizations need to come up with different strategies to address this problem. They include problem identification, establishing shelter-based clinics, and undertaking rescue missions. Others can be setting up convalescent and respite care and residential placements. Government agencies and other organizations need to develop a social needs program to tackle some of those problems. However, this approach requires inter-professional collaboration for it to work efficiently. The benefits of this cooperation include bringing equity in healthcare provision, improving patient care and outcomes, enabling the faster and efficient treatment, and reducing errors in treating the concerned vulnerable group.
References
Abel, K. M., & Newbigging, K. (2018). Addressing unmet needs in women’s health. British Medical Association .
Bharel, M., Santiago, E. R., Forgione, S. N., León, C. K., & Weinreb, L. (2015). Eliminating health disparities: Innovative methods to improve cervical cancer screening in a medically underserved population. American Journal of Public Health . https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302417
Wood, L., Wood, N. J. R., Vallesi, S., Stafford, A., Davies, A., & Cumming, C. (2019). Hospital collaboration with a Housing First program to improve health outcomes for people experiencing homelessness. Housing, Care and Support . https://doi.org/10.1108/HCS-09-2018-0023
