ArticleBMC public health2025
Women's experiences of homelessness and violence during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada's largest city: an integrated qualitative analysis of clients of violence against women organizations and encampment residents.
Article in BMC public health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Improving Access to Necessary Oral Healthcare Among Racialized Women Impacted by Intimate Partner Violence: A Qualitative Exploration of Care Seeking Experiences.Dental traumatology : official publication of International Association for Dental Traumatology · 2026Article
- Contrasting organizational responses to femicide in Mexico's public health crisis.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Understanding Canadian experiences of suicidality during the COVID-19 pandemic: protocol of a pan-Canadian qualitative study.BMJ open · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundViolence against women (VAW) is the most common cause of women's homelessness. However, policy and programming for VAW and homelessness have developed and operated in siloes in many countries, including Canada, limiting capacity to address the unique needs of women facing both interrelated issues. This study uniquely analyzes data from participants experiencing violence and homelessness drawn from each of the VAW and homelessness sectors at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada's largest city, Toronto.
methodsWe qualitatively analyzed data from two studies conducted concurrently in 2021 as part of the Marginalization and COVID-19 (MARCO) Project, which aimed to investigate outcomes of the COVID-19 response among people experiencing marginalization in the Greater Toronto Area. Participants were 10 survivors who accessed VAW services and 23 residents of homeless encampments. We applied a reflexive thematic analysis within a feminist poststructuralist framework to explore participants' experiences of violence and homelessness and interrogate the structural factors that dictate which and how different participants 'end up' in different sectors and their outcomes.
resultsWe generated three themes in our analysis: (1) inequities exacerbated: (abuse of) power and control as pathways into women's homelessness; (2) negotiating trade-offs between safety and autonomy; and (3) gender stereotypes versus gender-transformative approaches. There was a common pathway of VAW to homelessness, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and most acutely felt by participants facing intersecting forms of marginalization (e.g., economic or immigration precarity). Considerations around safety and autonomy were central to shaping experiences of women's homelessness. Participants described ways in which gender stereotypes, both internalized and at systems- and organizational-levels, harmed them in terms of service (in)access - especially for women who used substances or were lone caregivers. The most positive experiences when accessing shelter or housing services were when participants received gender-specific supports that promoted their safety and empowerment - in many cases, in spite of the constraints presented by COVID-19 public health measures.
conclusionsOur results highlight the need for strengthened collaboration between the VAW and housing/homelessness sectors and a unified policy strategy to address homelessness that applies a gender-transformative and intersectional approach, during and beyond public health emergencies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.