Vulnerable Populations
Vulnerable populations are of increasing interest to healthcare, since the disparities they face in access to medical treatment significantly affect their quality and duration of life. Vulnerability can arise from numerous factors including socioeconomic and legal status, age, race, ethnicity, medical conditions and other. Thus, vulnerable populations are most frequently identified as patients with chronic conditions, children, elderly, racial or ethnical minorities, underinsured, homeless, prisoners, and patients who belong to LGBTQI community (Waisel, 2013). Socioeconomically disadvantaged vulnerable populations represent the category of special interest, since rising income inequality contributes to acuteness of the problem and limits access of certain populations to housing, food and healthcare. The paper focuses on exploration of homelessness in relation to healthcare including definition of factors that contribute to vulnerability of homeless people, implications for healthcare and advocate and educator roles of the nurse in addressing the needs of the vulnerable population.
Methods
The research is based on secondary sources of information including journal articles and statistic reports. Targeted body of literature was searched in digital libraries of academic journals. When selecting the data, sources were checked for reliability and validity. Reliability criteria included assessment of objectivity of information presentation, qualification of authors, credibility of a journal of publication, and accuracy of data. To ensure accurate presentation of current situation of the problem, sources published not earlier than in 2010 were chosen with focus on specialized healthcare journals, such as American Journal of Public Health and Journal of Nursing Management. The data obtained is organized in the following sections: description of the vulnerable population, contributing factors to vulnerability, implications for healthcare, and roles of the nurse in addressing the needs of homeless people.
Results
Homeless people are defined as those who lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence. As assessment of the number of homeless individuals is obstructed, estimates of the indicator are found to vary from 549,928 people according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (2016) to 3.5 million people as indicated by Bugget et al. (2010). The main factors contributing to the vulnerability are identified as follows: chronic conditions, vision impairment, food insufficiency, mental health and substance abuse. The conducted analysis proved significant disparity in access to healthcare services among homeless individuals when compared to housed population. Access to healthcare is restricted by financial and nonfinancial barriers with prevalence of lack of insurance and experience of stigmatizing and discrimination in clinical settings based on poverty and homeless status. When addressing the needs of homeless population, advocate and educator roles of the nurse are found to be capable of improving delivery of healthcare services to the vulnerable population.
Discussion
Description of the Vulnerable Population
The vulnerable population covered in the paper is homeless people. As identified by Terry et al. (2010), homeless people are those who “lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence” (p.4). The population category includes people who share accommodation of other individuals, live in motels or hotels because of unavailability of other …
