Homelessness Among Female Veterans: A Systematic Review of the Literature

The authors conducted a systematic, critical review of the literature to assess and summarize existing research on homelessness among female veterans. They searched seven electronic databases (ERIC, Proquest Dissertations and Theses, PsycINFO, PubMed, Social Services Abstracts, Social Science Citation Index, and Sociological Abstracts), websites of several government and research organizations, and reference lists of prior studies. They abstracted data on study design, funding source, and topic from studies meeting inclusion criteria and classified each study into one of the following categories: epidemiology, health and other services utilization, and interventions. The authors included both experimental and observational studies of interventions in the review and performed a narrative synthesis for each of the 26 studies identified. No studies were experimental, 20 were observational, and the remainder were either qualitative or descriptive. Of the 26 identified studies, 14 were epidemiologic, 7 focused on the health and additional service utilization, and 5 were intervention studies. Findings provided important baseline epidemiologic information about homelessness among female veterans and indicated that female veterans were at an increased risk of homelessness relative to their male veteran and female non-veteran counterparts. Additional research is needed to develop and implement effective, evidence-based programs to prevent and end homelessness among women veterans.