Baltimore City has a large vulnerable population consisting of poor, elderly, disabled, mentally ill, and homeless. In many instances these group designations can overlap for the same person further compounding their situation. Nationally 0.9 to 1.2 percent of the US population will experience homelessness over the course of a year. For those who experience homelessness chronically their life expectancy drops to 42-52 years (Bernstein, 2015). Thus it becomes important to reach out to this population in order to build resilience and stability, not just for the event of a disaster but also to aid them to transition from homelessness. Homeless adults often lack consistent primary health care and are considered high users of the health care
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It is estimated that 5-10% of the homeless are currently pet owners. They propose that this bond can be used to disseminate information about disaster preparedness. By getting pet owners to prepare for the care of their pets they will also be forced to consider and prepare for their own care in the event of a crisis. The idea of using the bond between pets and their owners to distribute information is an excellent one. Encouraging and convincing people of the importance of their pet health and vaccination status can go a long way to drawing attention to their own regular health. Although the research for the article takes place in Australia many of the statistics are referenced back to US studies. Taking the idea of outreaching through pet ownership a step further could lead to initiating standard care necessary for vulnerable populations. A location where pet owners normally frequent could be used to initiate contact for health care and stable housing information. Additionally, evacuation and treatment locations that are pet friendly could target this location. Knowing that there are other places where they and their pets are welcome in the event of an emergency would go a long way in decreasing the stress experienced during a …show more content…
This can be a daunting task when considering the conditions the homeless face which include disparities in health care, transient housing status, food insecurities, and abuse all work to create a population facing unmanaged chronic illness and untreated mental illness. Fortunately when looking at homeless adolescents Lee et Al. (2011) found that resiliency is a learned behavior. If this is so it greatly implies that with proper planning and implementation mental health resiliency can be taught to the current homeless population. When considering the effectiveness of a working outreach plan we can consider the project set up by Lashley (2006) to test and treat Latent Tuberculosis Infections (LTBI) in the population of Baltimore City. This project was done at the local level in conjunction with the Healthy People 2010 initiative. For outreach into the community they went through a faith-based addiction recovery mission where they were able to test 98% of patients. Patients that tested positive were then referred to the Health Department for treatment and follow-up. In addition to treatment the program also educated participants on TB risk factors and prevention methods. The goal of the project was to have 65% of LTBI patients to complete six of the nine month treatment program. One of the biggest barriers found in Baltimore was
It is estimated that 5-10% of the homeless are currently pet owners. They propose that this bond can be used to disseminate information about disaster preparedness. By getting pet owners to prepare for the care of their pets they will also be forced to consider and prepare for their own care in the event of a crisis. The idea of using the bond between pets and their owners to distribute information is an excellent one. Encouraging and convincing people of the importance of their pet health and vaccination status can go a long way to drawing attention to their own regular health. Although the research for the article takes place in Australia many of the statistics are referenced back to US studies. Taking the idea of outreaching through pet ownership a step further could lead to initiating standard care necessary for vulnerable populations. A location where pet owners normally frequent could be used to initiate contact for health care and stable housing information. Additionally, evacuation and treatment locations that are pet friendly could target this location. Knowing that there are other places where they and their pets are welcome in the event of an emergency would go a long way in decreasing the stress experienced during a …show more content…
This can be a daunting task when considering the conditions the homeless face which include disparities in health care, transient housing status, food insecurities, and abuse all work to create a population facing unmanaged chronic illness and untreated mental illness. Fortunately when looking at homeless adolescents Lee et Al. (2011) found that resiliency is a learned behavior. If this is so it greatly implies that with proper planning and implementation mental health resiliency can be taught to the current homeless population. When considering the effectiveness of a working outreach plan we can consider the project set up by Lashley (2006) to test and treat Latent Tuberculosis Infections (LTBI) in the population of Baltimore City. This project was done at the local level in conjunction with the Healthy People 2010 initiative. For outreach into the community they went through a faith-based addiction recovery mission where they were able to test 98% of patients. Patients that tested positive were then referred to the Health Department for treatment and follow-up. In addition to treatment the program also educated participants on TB risk factors and prevention methods. The goal of the project was to have 65% of LTBI patients to complete six of the nine month treatment program. One of the biggest barriers found in Baltimore was