Homeless youth are prone to HIV due to their engagement in high risk behavior. Many agencies conduct interventions to educate/train a select group of homeless youth about HIV prevention practices. These trained youth form a team whose goal is to maximize spread of HIV based information in their social network. This team of humans usually relies on word-of-mouth information spread to maximize th...

This study examines the effects of childhood-onset conduct disorder on later antisocial behavior and street victimization among a group of homeless and runaway adolescents. Four hundred twenty-eight homeless and runaway youth were interviewed directly on the streets and in shelters from four Midwestern states. Key findings include the following. First, compared with those who exhibit adolescent...

Becoming homeless is a convergence of many individual vulnerabilities and structural factors. Homelessness has serious implications for the health of individuals and populations [1]. In the North American context, and globally the majority of people who are homeless are men (71%); when women are homeless they are more likely to be homeless with children [2,3]. In recent years, the number of Can...

PURPOSE To describe and explain variations in first mental health service utilization before and after running away from home for homeless adolescents. METHODS Survey interviews were conducted with homeless and runaway youth in several Midwestern locations. The effects of family of origin factors and street experiences on the likelihood of seeing a mental health professional for the first tim...

Although high rates of sexual victimization have been reported among homeless youth, less is known about whether the risk factors vary for gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth compared to heterosexual youth. Based on a sample of 172 homeless young adults ages 19 to 26, results revealed that depressive symptoms, prostitution, and having friends who traded sex were significantly associated with highe...

This study examined self-concept, resiliency, and social support in 107 children and youth placed in foster care in New York City. Of the children and youth, 55 were placed in family foster care, while the remaining 52 children and youth were placed in a kinship foster home. Significantly more of mothers of the kinship foster care children and youth were homeless or substance abusing, yet visit...

Although numerous homeless youth report trading sex, few studies have examined risk factors associated with trading sex and even fewer have employed multivariate analyses to examine this relationship, even though trading sex is associated with many negative health outcomes. Based on a sample of 151 homeless young adults in the midwestern United States, logistic regression analyses revealed that...

Homeless youth present significant challenges both to youth workers and policy-makers seeking to develop better prevention and intervention strategies. This article discusses the compelling need for researchers and policy-makers to make efforts to work collaboratively to develop improved social policy informed by research findings.

This report presents national estimates of the prevalence of selected health risk behaviors among youth ages 12-21 years, by sex, Hispanic origin, and race for youth of non-Hispanic origin. Topics include: cigarette and other tobacco use, alcohol and other drug use, sexual experience, HIV/AIDS education, runaway and homeless experiences, violence, unintentional injury control, weight control, a...

Homeless youth are prone to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) due to their engagement in high risk behavior such as unprotected sex, sex under influence of drugs, etc. Many non-profit agencies conduct interventions to educate and train a select group of homeless youth about HIV prevention and treatment practices and rely on word-of-mouth spread of information through their social network. Prev...