Health of SRO hotel tenants in Downtown Eastside

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 55, No. 8, October 2013, Pages 366-367 News

A UBC study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry reveals the multiple health concerns faced by an esti-mated 3000 tenants in single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The results of the study aim to improve the provision of health care and housing among residents of the Downtown Eastside.

SROs are often the only alternative to homelessness for low-income individuals in Vancouver. Some of these buildings are substandard and many tenants suffer from substance dependence, mental illness, and infectious diseases. The study data show that two-thirds of SRO tenants surveyed were previously homeless, and suffered from an average of three concurrent illnesses. Of those surveyed, 95% had substance dependence and almost two-thirds were involved in injection drug use. Nearly half suffered from psychosis, 18% were HIV positive, and 70% had been exposed to hepatitis C. The study found that the death rate for participants was nearly 5 times greater than in the general population. 

The research team, which included investigators from seven departments at UBC and Simon Fraser Universi-ty, conducted psychiatric as--sessments, neurological evaluations, MRIs, and blood tests with 293 SRO hotel tenants who participated in the study over an average of 2 years.

The study, entitled “The Hotel Study: Multimorbidity in a Community Sample Living in Marginal Housing” can be viewed at http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org.

. Health of SRO hotel tenants in Downtown Eastside. BCMJ, Vol. 55, No. 8, October, 2013, Page(s) 366-367 - News.


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