Tuesday, January 31, 2006

How much worse off are the homeless?

According to Newsday,
Homeless adults in New York City had higher rates of HIV and tuberculosis, were more likely to be hospitalized because of mental illness or substance abuse, and died at twice the rate of adults with homes.
This is quite a claim! When I was last in New York City (over two years ago) I believe the death rate was still what it was for the last 5766 years, viz. 1 to a person -- irrespective of any facts pertaining to home-ownership

3 comments:

Zev said...

I am no physics major or anything but doesn't rate=event/time? So for homeless people that time is half what it is for people with homes. Or am I missing something?

miriam said...

the next paragraph says:
"The city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and Department of Homeless Services released a report Monday that found that the death rate among homeless adults in the city's shelter system was 2,192 per 100,000 persons between 2001 and 2003, twice the rate of the city's overall adult population. "

so it seems they make their "claim" explicit and define rate as "occurences in one year/100,000 population." i guess now that we've clarified that a sentence about homeless peope dying isn't so funny afterall.

Yehuda said...

While I try to stay abreast of the news, I don't always have time to do all the reading. Sorry. -Yehuda