The novel coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) pandemic has negatively impacted not only our physical health but also mental health, including increasing depressive and anxiety symptoms. In particular, socially and physically vulnerable populations, such as people experiencing homelessness (PEH), may be more likely to have their mental health worsened by the pandemic due to having more difficulty meeting basic human needs. Therefore, this study aims to assess the impact of COVID-19 on mental health of the homeless in Japan by evaluating depressive and anxiety symptoms and identifying the associated factors particularly, sociodemographic variables as age, employment status and the fear and perceived risk of COVID-19 infection. A cross-sectional interview survey among 158 PEH in Osaka Prefecture was conducted from April to May 2022. The survey included sociodemographic questions and history and perceived risk of infection with COVID-19. Depressive symptoms were measured using the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and anxiety symptoms using the seven-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7), and the fear of COVID-19 using the seven-item Fear of New Coronavirus Scale (FCV-19S). In this study, the prevalence of depression (PHQ-9≥10) was 38.6%, anxiety disorder (GAD≥10) was 19.0%, and high fear of COVID-19 (FCV-19S≥19) was 28.5%. Univariate logistic regression analysis revealed that PEH in younger age groups (18–34 years), and with joblessness, higher perceived infection risk, and higher fear of COVID-19 were more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety (p

The novel coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) pandemic has negatively impacted not only our physical health but also mental health, including increasing depressive and anxiety symptoms. In particular, socially and physically vulnerable populations, such as people experiencing homelessness (PEH), may be more likely to have their mental health worsened by the pandemic due to having more difficulty meeting basic human needs. Therefore, this study aims to assess the impact of COVID-19 on mental health of the homeless in Japan by evaluating depressive and anxiety symptoms and identifying the associated factors particularly, sociodemographic variables as age, employment status and the fear and perceived risk of COVID-19 infection. A cross-sectional interview survey among 158 PEH in Osaka Prefecture was conducted from April to May 2022. The survey included sociodemographic questions and history and perceived risk of infection with COVID-19. Depressive symptoms were measured using the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and anxiety symptoms using the seven-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7), and the fear of COVID-19 using the seven-item Fear of New Coronavirus Scale (FCV-19S). In this study, the prevalence of depression (PHQ-9≥10) was 38.6%, anxiety disorder (GAD≥10) was 19.0%, and high fear of COVID-19 (FCV-19S≥19) was 28.5%. Univariate logistic regression analysis revealed that PEH in younger age groups (18–34 years), and with joblessness, higher perceived infection risk, and higher fear of COVID-19 were more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety (p

The novel coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) pandemic has negatively impacted not only our physical health but also mental health, including increasing depressive and anxiety symptoms. In particular, socially and physically vulnerable populations, such as people experiencing homelessness (PEH), may be more likely to have their mental health worsened by the pandemic due to having more difficulty meeting basic human needs. Therefore, this study aims to assess the impact of COVID-19 on mental health of the homeless in Japan by evaluating depressive and anxiety symptoms and identifying the associated factors particularly, sociodemographic variables as age, employment status and the fear and perceived risk of COVID-19 infection. A cross-sectional interview survey among 158 PEH in Osaka Prefecture was conducted from April to May 2022. The survey included sociodemographic questions and history and perceived risk of infection with COVID-19. Depressive symptoms were measured using the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and anxiety symptoms using the seven-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7), and the fear of COVID-19 using the seven-item Fear of New Coronavirus Scale (FCV-19S). In this study, the prevalence of depression (PHQ-9≥10) was 38.6%, anxiety disorder (GAD≥10) was 19.0%, and high fear of COVID-19 (FCV-19S≥19) was 28.5%. Univariate logistic regression analysis revealed that PEH in younger age groups (18–34 years), and with joblessness, higher perceived infection risk, and higher fear of COVID-19 were more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety (p

Abstract

The 2003 Core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire (CWIQ) Survey is a nationwide sample survey, designed to provide indicators for monitoring poverty and living standards in the country, at national, regional and district levels. It is a district-based probability sample that covered a total of 49,003 households nationwide, with 405 households drawn from each district, except for the metropolitan areas, which had samples of households as follows: Accra, 2,430; Kumasi, 11,620; and Shama-Ahanta East, 1,215; as well as the Tema Municipal Area, 810.

Key Findings were as follows:

Adult Literacy

About 50 per cent of the population aged 15 years can read and write (53.4 per cent), an increase of about 10 per cent over the rate recorded in the 1997 CWIQ Survey. Males have a higher literacy rate than females, 65.8 per cent compared to 42.3 per cent. There is a 30 percentage point gap between urban and rural literacy rates (69.6 per cent and 39.8 per cent respectively). Females are more disadvantaged in rural areas where the literacy rate is less than 30 per cent compared urban areas where the rate is more than 50 per cent. The female literacy rates are also lower than the male rates in both urban and rural areas of the country.

Youth Literacy

Among the youth, i.e., the population aged 15 - 24 years, the proportion that can read and write increased only slightly from 64.1 per cent in 1997 to 68.7 per cent in 2003. The female youth made some modest gains in their literacy levels, which increased by 10 per cent, while that of males increased by only 4 per cent over the five-year period. The literacy rate for urban youth (81.7 per cent) is considerably higher than that of the rural youth (56.4 per cent). The rural poor have however remained disadvantaged, with just a third of its females and less than half of its males being able to read and write.

Net Enrolment

Seven in 10 children aged 6 to 11 years are enrolled in primary school, for girls as for boys. The differences between the enrolment rates for girls and boys at the national level, and in the rural and urban areas are marginal. The biggest gender gap is 2.4 percentage points among the urban poor, with boys having the edge. Substantially fewer children progress from primary to secondary level. Of the children aged 12 to 17 years, only about 4 in 10, are enrolled in secondary school, and the gender disparity in 1997 has reversed. Overall, enrolment at the secondary level declined marginally, from 40.0 percent in 1997 to 38.1 per cent in 2003. The rate however declined appreciably for males (from 43.6 to 37.9 per cent) but increased slightly for females (from 36.4 to 38.4 per cent) over the five year period. There are substantial differences between the urban and rural areas (50.5 per cent compared to 28.7 per cent), and between the poor in urban and rural areas (40.3 per cent compared to 15.2 per cent).

Access to School

A high proportion of primary school children (85.4 per cent) have a primary school within 30 minutes of their home, compared to only 43.3 per cent, for secondary schools. Access to a primary school is substantially high for all four subgroups - rural versus urban and rural poor versus urban poor. The rural poor have the lowest access rate (72.7 per cent), with 93.4 percent of the urban poor reporting access. In contrast, about 62.6 per cent of secondary level students in urban areas, but only 28.8 per cent of their counterparts in rural areas have a secondary school within 30 minutes of their home. The corresponding proportions for the urban and rural poor are 55.1 and 12.9 per cent, respectively.

Satisfaction with Education

About two-thirds (68.0 per cent) of all primary school children report being satisfied with the school they attend while a higher proportion (75.0 per cent) of the secondary school students report being satisfied with their school. However, primary pupils and secondary students in rural areas, especially the rural poor, are less satisfied with their schools than their counterparts in the urban areas.

Access to Health Facilities.

The time required to reach a health facility could affect the chances of survival of sick people, especially in emergency situations. Yet, only 57.6 per cent of the population live within 30 minutes of a health facility. This is however a significant improvement over the 1997 average of 37.2 per cent. More than three quarters (78.5 per cent) of urban households have good access to health facilities compared to 42.3 per cent of the rural households. The urban poor have an access rate (72.7 per cent) below the average rate for all urban areas (78.5 percent); while the rural poor is more disadvantaged, relative to their counterparts - in all rural areas and the urban poor. Only 27 per cent of the rural poor live within 30 minutes of a health facility.

Adequacy of Health Services

About 18 per cent of the population reported having been sick or injured in the four-week period preceding the survey, and there has been little change in the situation since 1997 (18.6 percent). In general, only 18.4 per cent of the people consult a health practitioner. Nearly eight out of ten (78.6 per cent) persons who use health services are satisfied with the services they receive, a considerable improvement over the 1997 rate of 57 per cent. The level of satisfaction with the medical services show very little variation across groups. Equal proportions of rural and urban users of the health services are satisfied, and a slightly lower percentage of the rural than urban poor users of these facilities are satisfied.

Prenatal Care

About nine in ten women (93.4 per cent) aged 12-49 years who had live births within 12 months of the survey, received prenatal care. The urban and rural poor have lower participation in prenatal care than their counterparts. The proportion of these women who received prenatal care is 95.9 per cent for the urban poor, and 97.3 per cent for all urban areas. Similarly, the rural poor have lower participation in prenatal care than all rural areas; 86.5 per cent compared to 91.2 percent, respectively.

Births Assisted by Trained Health Professionals

About half of the children aged under five years, were delivered with the assistance of a trained health professional (doctors, nurses and midwifes) in 2003 (51.8 per cent), an increase over the proportion in 1997 (44.7 per cent). The involvement of trained professionals in birth deliveries is more than twice as high in the urban areas (83.3 per cent), than in the rural areas (34.7 per cent). The rate of professionally assisted births is extremely low among the rural poor, for whom the corresponding proportion is only 17.3 per cent compared to that for the urban poor, almost four times as high.

Child Nutritional Status

Of the three anthropometric indicators of malnutrition (stunting, wasting and underweight), stunting is the most prevalent among the children aged 0-4 years. Nearly one-third (32.4 percent) of the children under the age of five years are stunted (short for their age) compared to 15.5 per cent for wasted (underweight for age for height) and 25.8 per cent for underweight (underweight for their height for age). Stunting is higher in rural children (33.6 per cent) than in urban children (30.0 per cent), while children of the poor in both rural and urban areas are worse off relative to the national average. However, the urban rates for both wasting and underweight are considerably higher than the rural rates, and the urban rates are higher than the national average, while the rural rates are lower. While the level of underweight barely changed over the five year period, (26.0 per cent, in 1997), the rates of stunting and wasting have worsened, and in the case of wasting, it is more than double the 1997 rate (6.5 per cent).

Availability of Employment

The proportion of the population aged 15 years and older who are unemployed averaged 5.4 percent, a slight increase over the 1997 figure (4.6 per cent). The proportion for urban areas (7.6 per cent) is about twice that of rural areas (3.5 per cent). The underemployment rate stood at 13.6 per cent, with the rural rate being 14.9 per cent, and urban, 12.1 per cent.

Meeting Food Needs

More than a tenth (12.8 per cent) of the households report having problems to meet their basic food needs. However, this problem is more prevalent among the rural poor. The proportion of rural households that have difficulty meeting their basic food needs is slightly higher (13.8 per cent) than for urban areas (11.6 per cent).

Access to Water

More than 90 per cent of households are within 30 minutes of their source of drinking water, compared to 82.1 per cent recorded in 1997. Both the rural and urban households record an access level of over 90 per cent. The rural poor have a lower access rate of 83.1 per cent, compared to 94.9 per cent for the urban poor.

Improved Water Source

The quality of drinking water is of great importance to the health of every individual. A higher percentage of households obtain their drinking water from improved water sources- pipe water in the dwelling, outdoor tap, borehole, and protected well-(74.1 per cent), compared to the 1997 figure of 65.2 per cent. Urban households record a higher percentage than rural households (87.3 per cent and 63.0 per cent, respectively), with over 20 percentage points difference.

Safe Sanitation

Safe sanitation, defined as the use of flush toilet, covered pit latrine and VIP/KVIP, is available to 55 per cent of households. Although this represents an improvement over the 1997 rate of 45.8 per cent, safe sanitation is more of an urban (80.9 per cent) than rural phenomenon (33.1 per cent). Safe sanitation facilities are even scarcer among the rural poor, with only 9.2 per cent of their households with these facilities. Moreover, the proportion of urban poor households with safe sanitation (66.9 per cent), is

BackgroundMissouri is one of seven priority states identified by the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative, and St. Louis contains almost half of the people living with HIV (PLWH) in Missouri. As St. Louis has a marked history of structural racism and economic inequities, we utilized the Intersectionality Based Policy Analysis (IBPA) framework to guide a participatory needs assessment for planning and program development.MethodsThe planning team included researchers, the lead implementer from our community partner, and two community representatives, and had biweekly 60–90 min meetings for 18 months. The planning team approved all research materials, reviewed and interpreted results, and made decisions about recruitment, conduct of the needs assessment, and development of the planned intervention. The needs assessment integrated information from existing data, (1) interviews with (a) PLWH (n = 12), (b) community leaders (n = 5), (c) clinical leaders (n = 4), and (d) community health workers (CHWs) (n = 3) and (e) CHW supervisors (n = 3) who participated in a Boston University-led project on CHWs in the context of HIV and (2) focus groups (2 FG, 12 participants) with front-line health workers such as peer specialists, health coaches and outreach workers. A rapid qualitative analysis approach was used for all interviews and focus groups.ResultsThe IBPA was used to guide team discussions of team values, definition and framing of the problem, questions and topics in the key informant interviews, development of the logic model of the problem, and all results. Applying the IBPA framework contributed to a focus on intersectional drivers of inequities in HIV. The effective management of HIV faces significant challenges from high provider turnover, insufficient integration of CHWs into care teams, and organizational limitations in tailoring treatment plans. Increasing use of CHWs for HIV treatment and prevention also faces challenges. People living with HIV (PLWH) encounter multiple barriers including stigma, lack of social support, co-morbidities, and difficulties in meeting basic needs.ConclusionAddressing intersectional drivers of health inequities may require multi-level, structural approaches. We see the IBPA as a valuable tool for participatory planning that emphasizes equity and integrates community engagement principles in program and implementation design for improving HIV outcomes.

This dataset includes Statistics Canada table 46-10-0045-01, titled “Housing characteristics, by tenure including first-time homebuyer status”. The table includes information on selected housing characteristics (difficulty meeting financial needs, visible minority status, household type, age group, and employment status) housing by tenure. The tenure category of 'owner' is split up into first-time home buyers and owner who is not a first-time home buyer. The table has been edited to include only geographies from British Columbia. The table is available in CSV and Excel Workbook format. Definitions and notes are included at the bottom of the spreadsheet. This data set was collected as part of the Canadian Housing Survey by Statistics Canada. Geographies: British Columbia, Large urban population centres in British Columbia, Medium population centres in British Columbia, Small population centres in British Columbia, Rural areas in British Columbia, Vancouver CMA, Other census metropolitan areas in British Columbia, Census agglomerations in British Columbia

The incarceration of a parent is often a continuation of a challenging family situation marked by poverty, unstable housing, trauma, and abuse. These challenges make it difficult for incarcerated parents reentering their communities to raise their children effectively and, thus, increase the likelihood of poor outcomes for their children. Children whose parents are also battling opioid misuse have an even higher risk for long-term problems. This study uses survey data from 48 community service providers to better understand the service needs of parents with histories of problematic opioid use who are reentering their communities after incarceration. Community service providers recommended implementing intervention programs that cover critical information related to basic needs, supportive community resources, drug treatment programs, and parenting to help individuals thrive in their communities and meet their children's needs. The services most frequently identified by providers as important for reentering parents included housing, mentors or peer counselors, mental health support, group therapy and other support programs. Key topics to address in parenting programs included problem-solving techniques, the effect of parent's addiction on children, and strategies for connecting with and meeting children's needs. Suggestions are made for future research and intervention development.

Students who are marginalised based on varying identities, backgrounds and characteristics are highly vulnerable to mental health challenges, but many do not receive appropriate support from healthcare services. Several barriers have been identified, including cultural and systemic factors. Therefore, everyday coping strategies and support in different settings are vital. This study examines the mental health coping strategies and support needs among marginalised students in the United Kingdom (UK). We analysed qualitative and quantitative data from a cross-sectional survey conducted between December 2021 and July 2022. Statistical analysis was conducted on data obtained using the abbreviated version of the Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced Inventory (Brief-COPE). Qualitative content analysis was applied to data collected using open-ended questions. From a subsample of 788 further and higher education students, 581 (73.7%) students (M = 25 years, SD = 8.19) were categorised as marginalised based on ethnicity, sex/gender, sexuality, religious beliefs, first language, birth country, age (i.e., mature students), and having special education needs/disabilities. Marginalised students had significantly higher scores for problem-focused, emotion-focused and avoidant coping strategies/practices compared to other students. Coping strategies included talking to friends and family, practising religion or spirituality, engaging in creative/innovative activities like hobbies, using entertainment as a distraction, waiting to see if things improve and isolating. Students expressed a need for improved or tailored services, additional academic support, and appropriate social support. These included contemporary approaches to support mental health, such as online provisions, regular mentor/personal tutor meetings, lowered academic pressures and opportunities for organised peer support. The findings from this study highlight significant and timely evidence on coping strategies and support needs among a wide range of marginalised student groups in the UK. This study provides important knowledge that is useful to inform personalised culturally appropriate mental health support that can be offered in education settings.

Linear regression output for three categories of coping strategies.