Homeless shelters and substance misuse

Time perspective, depression, and substance misuse among the homeless.

Using the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI; P. G. Zimbardo & J. N. Boyd, 1999), the authors found that homeless people, in comparison with a control group, had a significantly more negative outlook concerning their past and present as evinced by high Past-Negative and Present-Fatalistic scores and low Past-Positive scores on the ZTPI. However, the homeless individuals were almost indis...

POMDPs for Assisting Homeless Shelters - Computational and Deployment Challenges

This paper looks at challenges faced during the ongoing deployment of HEALER, a POMDP based software agent that recommends sequential intervention plans for use by homeless shelters, who organize these interventions to raise awareness about HIV among homeless youth. HEALER’s sequential plans (built using knowledge of social networks of homeless youth) choose intervention participants strategica...

Substance misuse during pregnancy.

The use of illicit substances such as cocaine and heroin during pregnancy is common. and heroin during pregnancy is common. Anonymous screening of consecutive urine Anonymous screening of consecutive urine samples testing positive for pregnancy from samples testing positive for pregnancy from a UK inner-city clinic demonstrated that a UK inner-city clinic demonstrated that approximately 16% of ...

Parenting Capacity and Substance Misuse

Substance Misuse in Pregnancy

Tobacco, alcohol, cannabis and cocaine are the most consumed psychoactive drugs throughout the population. Prenatal exposure to these drugs could alter normal foetal development and could threaten future welfare. The main changes observed in prenatal exposure to tobacco are caused by nicotine and carbon monoxide, which can impede nutrient and oxygen exchange between mother and foetus, restricti...