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 and rely on word-of-mouth spread of information through their social network. Previous work in strategic selection of intervention participants does not handle uncertainties in the social network’s str...

OBJECTIVE This study investigated factors associated with alcohol use among homeless and runaway adolescents, using a risk-amplification model. METHOD Homeless and runaway adolescents (N = 536, 60% female) were recruited and interviewed by outreach workers directly on the streets, in shelters and in drop-in centers in four Midwestern states. The average age was 16 years; ages ranged from 12 t...

Most youth who become homeless return to their parent(s) or guardian(s), though some experience multiple or lengthy episodes of homelessness. Because research on this latter group is quite limited, ASPE commissioned a project to summarize what research is available on these youth. This project aims to help service providers and policymakers more effectively target resources to prevent or end pr...

OBJECTIVES It has been proposed that homeless street girls are more likely to be from dysfunctional families and exhibit psychological distress than homeless street boys, reflecting cultural factors that result in differential norms for male and female behavior. The current analysis examined whether male and female street youth in a mid-sized Brazilian city differed in their family circumstance...

Current knowledge about food insecurity in North America is largely based on research with low-income households. Much less is known about the food experiences of homeless people, a group who are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity. This study explored the food experiences of street youth, one of the fastest growing segments of the homeless population in Canada. To gain an in-depth under...

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...

Although research has found high rates of child maltreatment, widespread victimization, and other negative outcomes among homeless youth and young adults, resiliency among this population has largely been understudied. Specifically, a gap remains in terms of how protective factors such as self-efficacy, low deviant beliefs, and religiosity operate among homeless youth and young adults. The purp...