Trial reportPloS one2023
Women experiencing homelessness and mental illness in a Housing First multi-site trial: Looking beyond housing to social outcomes and well-being.
Trial report in PloS one, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- What works for whom: a systematic review of inequalities in inclusion and effectiveness of social interventions for mental ill- health.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Pooled it
- Targeted interventions to improve the social and economic circumstances of people with mental ill-health from marginalised communities: a systematic review.Psychological medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Interventions to improve the mental health of women experiencing homelessness: A systematic review of the literature.PloS one · 2024Pooled it
- Trial
- Stories of Childhood Trauma Experienced by Women Living Houseless: Deconstructing the Concept of Protection.Research in nursing & health · 2026Article
- Social Health Among Individuals Living with Mental Illness During the Transition To Permanent Supportive Housing: A Scoping Review.Community mental health journal · 2026Article
- Effects of Community-Based Health and Social Interventions on Mental Health Outcomes Among People Experiencing Homelessness: A Systematic Review.Nursing reports (Pavia, Italy) · 2026Review
- From housing to home and belonging: structural violence, ontological (in)security and women's mental health.Frontiers in sociology · 2026Article
- Unmet Subsistence and Mental Health Needs in Women Experiencing Homelessness: Rethinking Care Models for Improved Outcomes.Journal of general internal medicine · 2025Article
- Trauma across the life course and pathways to healing for older women experiencing homelessness.Frontiers in global women's health · 2025Article
- Housing first for middle aged and older women: the emerging case.Frontiers in global women's health · 2025Article
- Grappling with Issues of Motherhood for Women with Schizophrenia.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThere is scant research on the effectiveness of permanent supportive housing for homeless women with mental illness. This study examines the effectiveness of Housing First with an unprecedentedly large sample of homeless women from five Canadian cities, and explore baseline risk factors that predict social, health and well-being outcomes over a 24 month-period.
methodsThe At Home/Chez Soi multi-site randomized controlled Housing First trial recruited over 600 women between October 2009 and July 2011. This is a post-hoc subgroup exploratory analysis of self-identified women with at least one follow-up interview who were randomized to Housing First (HF) (n = 374) or treatment-as-usual (TAU) (n = 279) and had at least one follow-up interview. Linear mixed models and generalized estimating equations were used after multiple imputation was applied to address missing data.
resultsAt the end of follow-up, the mean percentage of days spent stably housed was higher for women in the intervention 74.8% (95%CI = 71.7%-77.8%) compared with women in the treatment-as-usual group, 37.9% (95%CI = 34.4%-41.3%), p<0.001. With few exceptions, social and mental health outcomes were similar for both groups at 6-, 12-, 18- and 24-months post-enrollment. Suicidality was a consistent predictor of increased mental health symptoms (beta = 2.85, 95% CI 1.59-4.11, p<0.001), decreased quality of life (beta = -3.99, 95% CI -6.49 to -1.49, p<0.001), decreased community functioning (beta = -1.16, 95% CI -2.10 to -0.22, p = 0.015) and more emergency department visits (rate ratio = 1.44, 95% CI 1.10-1.87, p<0.001) over the study period. Lower education was a predictor of lower community functioning (beta = -1.32, 95% CI -2.27 to -0.37, p = 0.006) and higher substance use problems (rate ratio = 1.27, 95% CI 1.06-1.52, p = 0.009) during the study.
conclusionsHousing First interventions ensured that women experiencing homelessness are quickly and consistently stably housed. However, they did not differentially impact health and social measures compared to treatment as usual. Ensuring positive health and social outcomes may require greater supports at enrolment for subgroups such as those with low educational attainment, and additional attention to severity of baseline mental health challenges, such as suicidality.
trial registrationInternational Standard Randomized Control Trial Number Register Identifier: ISRCTN42520374.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.