Homelessness has now change into the biggest and most damning gap in life expectancy in Australia.
AND groundbreaking report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare checked out the deaths of people in search of help in specialist homeless services in the last 12 months of their lives between 2012 and 2022.
The sheer number of deaths – roughly 12,500 over ten years – is astonishing, as is its increase over time. But so are disproportions.
The average age of death for the overall Australian population it’s 83 years. That’s greater than three a long time older than the homeless population included in this data – the common is just 46 years.
And the predominant causes of death – suicide and accidental poisoning (including drug overdose) – show that the issue goes beyond housing. It’s about opportunities for hope and good health that many Australians take with no consideration.
What counts is what counts
For too long, the death toll and large difference in life expectancy associated with homelessness have been largely invisible in national data.
Death of individuals who experienced homelessness it rarely works newspaper death notices or obituaries, or in national mortality data.
They are invisible after death related to invisibility in the lives of homeless people. It symbolizes the broader systemic abandonment and inertia of homelessness policy.
A groundbreaking photo
The report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare is the primary of its kind in Australia and presents us with a sobering picture.
The figure of nearly 1,500 deaths in fiscal 12 months 2021-2022 (the last 12 months in which data was reported) is confronting. It is higher than the annual rate in Australia death as a result of road tolls.
The report found that the predominant causes of death were suicide (12–15%) of all deaths over a ten-year period) and accidental poisoning (14–20%).
This population accounts for one in 20 suicides in Australia and one in six deaths from accidental poisoning.
And yet the most recent one national strategy on suicide prevention doesn’t mention homelessness in any respect.
Death of despair
These latest statistics reflect what has been described in international literature as “death of despair“.
The term refers to deaths from drug overdoses, suicide and alcohol-related diseases amongst socially and economically disadvantaged people.
There is usually life behind these numbers clear through terrible adversity, trauma, poverty and exclusion.
Darren England/AAP
In my research, I hung out with people in Perth who were often attempting to survive on the streets many diseases. Their despair was clear. The longer people remain homeless, the greater their health and hope erodes.
However, it is necessary to do not forget that these are also lives of incredible survival and resilience. In this context, living beyond the age of 50 literally means surviving “against the odds.”
Complex health conditions
A report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that other preventable conditions also kill individuals who experience homelessness. These include coronary heart disease, lung cancer and diabetes.
Diabetes is a classic example of how Homelessness affects management a typical chronic disease. What are you able to do in case your hospital discharge summary says “keep your insulin in the fridge” but you do not have a kitchen?
This is the population left about Australia’s many public health and preventive health successes, reminiscent of declining trends in smoking and successes in screening for bowel and cervical cancer.
Great Britain tests found that just about one in three homeless deaths were attributed to preventable or treatable conditions. This might be conservative.
For individuals who have experienced homelessness, a medically documented “cause” of death can mask many aspects and complexities. many health conditions.
Our research
Unfortunately, these statistics should not surprising.
They are repeated evidence from recent studies in Australia, United Kingdom and United States.
We observe similar differences in life expectancy in our country own monitoring deaths amongst people experiencing homelessness in Perth. Our data shows that there are a median of two deaths per week in this population in Perth alone.
Are we improving or regressing?
We cannot reverse the trend revealed by these grim new data unless we challenge the increasing “normalization” of homelessness in our country.
Yes, we’ve got a housing crisis. But we do not turn off the faucet either drivers homelessness, reminiscent of domestic violence, poverty and intergenerational trauma.
The latest report is a great first step in countering the invisibility of homelessness.
This adds much more weight calls from the homelessness sectornot only monitor and report annually on homeless deaths, but additionally to accelerate investments to ending homelessness in this country.
However, we hope that this may not be a one-off report. The data ought to be updated annually. In England, Wales and Scotland – where deaths The number of people experiencing homelessness is publicly announced yearly – and recently open consultations revealed the worth of this data.
Future reporting shouldn’t be limited to deaths of individuals who sought help from specialized homeless services in the last 12 months of life. There is quite a bit of evidence, including: latest Australian research that any experience of homelessness over the course of one’s life increases the chance of premature death.
Housing is health, and timely access to housing is important to reducing life expectancy gaps and restoring hope.