A up-to-date report links being homeless in Australia with 40 years of premature death

Homelessness has now become the largest and most damning gap in life expectancy in Australia.

AND groundbreaking report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare looked at the deaths of people seeking facilitate in specialist homeless services in the last year of their lives between 2012 and 2022.

The sheer number of deaths – approximately 12,500 over ten years – is astonishing, as is its raise over time. But so are disproportions.

The average age of death for the general Australian population it is 83 years. That’s more than three decades older than the homeless population included in this data – the average is just 46 years aged.

And the main causes of death – suicide and accidental poisoning (including drug overdoses) – show that the problem goes beyond housing. It’s about opportunities for hope and good health that many Australians take for granted.

What counts is what counts

For too long, the death toll and huge difference in life expectancy associated with homelessness have been largely unseen in national data.

Death of people who experienced homelessness it rarely works newspaper death notices or obituaries, or in national mortality data.

They are unseen 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 first of its kind in Australia and presents us with a sobering picture.

The figure of nearly 1,500 deaths in fiscal year 2021-2022 (the last year in which data was reported) is confronting. It is higher than the annual rate in Australia death due to road tolls.

The report found that the main 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 newest one national strategy on suicide prevention does not mention homelessness at all.

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 among socially and economically disadvantaged people.

There is often life behind these numbers clear through terrible adversity, trauma, poverty and exclusion.

In my research, I spent time with people in Perth who were often trying 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 critical to remember 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.”

Intricate health conditions

A report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that other preventable conditions also kill people who experience homelessness. These include coronary heart disease, lung cancer and diabetes.

Diabetes is a classic example of how Homelessness affects management a common chronic disease. What can you do if your hospital discharge summary says “keep your insulin in the fridge” but you don’t have a kitchen?

This is the population left about Australia’s many public health and preventive health successes, such as sinking trends in smoking and successes in screening for bowel and cervical cancer.

Great Britain tests found that almost one in three homeless deaths were attributed to preventable or treatable conditions. This is probably conservative.

For people who have experienced homelessness, a medically documented “cause” of death can mask many factors and complexities. many health conditions.

Our research

Unfortunately, these statistics are 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 among people experiencing homelessness in Perth. Our data shows that there are an average of two deaths a week in this population in Perth alone.

Are we getting better or regressing?

We cannot reverse the trend revealed by these grim up-to-date data unless we challenge the increasing “normalization” of homelessness in our country.

Yes, we have a housing crisis. But we don’t turn off the tap either drivers homelessness, such as domestic violence, poverty and intergenerational trauma.

The latest report is a good first step in countering the invisibility of homelessness.

This adds even more weight calls from the homelessness sectornot only monitor and report annually on homeless deaths, but also to accelerate investments to ending homelessness in this country.

However, we hope that this will not be a one-off report. The data should be updated annually. In England, Wales and Scotland – where deaths The number of people experiencing homelessness is publicly announced every year – and recently open consultations revealed the value of this data.

Future reporting should not be circumscribed to deaths of people who sought facilitate from specialized homeless services in the last year of life. There is a lot of evidence, including: latest Australian research that any experience of homelessness over the course of one’s life increases the risk of premature death.

Housing is health, and timely access to housing is indispensable to reducing life expectancy gaps and restoring hope.

If this article has raised concerns for you, or if you are worried about someone you know, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Dr. Andrew Davies of Homeless Healthcare contributed to this article.