The management of HIV remains one of the key priorities of modern healthcare since AIDS as a likely outcome of HIV is still incurable. Therefore, studying the factors that aggravate the problem and create obstacles for managing the disorder is essential to the improvement of patients’ health status, preventing HIV contraction, and minimizing the stigma of HIV. Since poverty is linked directly to the access to healthcare and the management of HIV as a public health issue, scrutinizing the effects of homelessness as one of the main outcomes of crippling poverty rates is critical to the improvement of the current situation with HIV. Caused by the lack of resources, awareness, and availability of services, homelessness reduces patients’ adherence to retroviral therapy, which increases the threat of HIV within a community and reduces the quality of patients’ lives exponentially.
In homeless populations, the application of traditional measures for enhancing adherence to antiretroviral therapy also proves to lead to less impressive results since the target audience tends to have different behavior patterns than patients that do not have housing issues. Specifically, the study by Palepu, Milloy, Kerr, Zhang, and Wood (2011) has shown that the presence of stable housing reduces the risks of non-compliance with the prescribed treatment measures. Higher rates of accessibility of healthcare services to people with residences is one of the main factors shaping the outcomes of the study, as the authors explain (Palepu et al., 2011). Therefore, it is highly suggested that compliance with ART should be controlled among homeless people to a significantly greater extent than among those that have places to live.
Apart from increasing the danger of HIV affecting an increasingly large number of homeless people, the concern about the failure to follow ART prescriptions among people without housing needs to be discussed. Due to the low levels of compliance with ART and the related treatment procedures among homeless people, the number of cases featuring incomplete HIV suppression will rise. As a recent article by Thakarar, Morgan, Gaeta, Hohl, and Drainoni (2016) shows, the effects of incomplete viral suppression have a dire effect on homeless people. The lack of stability in housing defines decreasing levels of engagement with on-site facilities that allow managing addiction and causes the levels of viral suppression among individuals and on the community level to drop (Thakarar et al., 2016). Therefore, the study that evaluates the effects of homelessness on the identified factors was a crucial step in fighting the prevalence of HIV among vulnerable groups.
Maintaining the consistency and continuity of care is one of the pillars of effective management of patients’ needs. The described issue gains exponentially high significance when meeting health-related needs of people living in underserviced communities (Thakarar et al., 2016). Therefore, stable housing becomes the platform for enhancing the effects of ART and the associated healthcare interventions. As Thakarar et al. (2016) explain, “secure housing can serve as a mechanism for engagement in ambulatory care” (p. 152). Indeed, as long as people have to move constantly, the continuity of care becomes questionable due to the inability to schedule the provision of the needed interventions. As a result, patients become exposed to an increased range of threats and face a vast variety of dangers, the primary one being the progression of HIV and its transformation into AIDS.
The outcomes of the study warn about the necessity to introduce the services similar to the on-site ones for people with permanent residence yet will offer a more flexible schedule for homeless people. The lack of accessibility to the organizations that provide HIV-related support and the relevant treatment options is one of the main reasons for homeless people with HIV to experience a rapid increase in HIV development due to its incomplete suppression. Apart from a rise in the number of fatal outcomes among homeless people, the onset of AIDS among the target population will pose a significant threat to the rest of the community (Palepu et al., 2011). Consequently, measures for providing homeless people with access to ART and the related medications is an essential task for healthcare organizations. A program aimed at building services for homeless people may be considered a solution, as the results of the study infer.
One of the main limitations of the studies under analysis is the lack of clarification regarding the factors that reduce adherence toward ART among homeless people. Although the answer to the described question might seem self-explanatory, answering it will allow managing the problem at hand and improving the levels of compliance with prescriptions against HIV progression and further development in homeless people and patients with housing issues (Takarar et al., 2016). Specifically, the creation of services where homeless people could have immediate and uninhibited access to HIV medications could help in curbing the rates of ART incompliance among homeless people. Therefore, a more profound analysis of the impediments faced by homeless people on the way to receiving ART will have to be scrutinized.
Nevertheless, the significance of both articles is quite high for the further management of HIV and AIDS in communities. While homeless people often pass under the radar of numerous healthcare organizations, the identified population group also deserves healthcare assistance and has to be provided with such. Due to their increased vulnerability to health risks, homeless people require particularly strong support from healthcare organizations, which includes promoting health literacy and educating them about available health services that will provide them with ART (Takarar et al., 2016; Palepu et al., 2011). By launching a program that will build ART facilities for Homeless people, one will produce a powerful impact on the overall levels of well-being and public health.
The results of the review prove that homelessness decreases the efficacy of antiretroviral therapy for people with HIV since it affects the adherence to the treatment to a considerable extent. Due to the problems associated with accessing healthcare services and the presence of financial constraints, homeless people typically fail to adhere to retroviral therapy. As a result, their chances of fighting the disease and stopping it from progressing into AIDS are reduced considerably. The described phenomenon affects not only the target demographic but also the community as a whole. For this purpose, a program targeted at enhancing the levels of adherence to ART among homeless people with HIV is needed. In order to reduce the levels of threat to which homeless people as one of the most vulnerable groups are exposed, one will need to build ART services for the target demographic. A health program aimed at addressing the problem of HIV in homeless people is a possible solution to the concern in question.
References
Palepu, A., Milloy, M., Kerr, T., Zhang, R., & Wood, E. (2011). Homelessness and adherence to antiretroviral therapy among a cohort of HIV-infected injection drug users. Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 88(3), 545-555. Web.
Thakarar, K., Morgan, J. R., Gaeta, J. M., Hohl, C., & Drainoni, M. (2016). Homelessness, HIV, and incomplete viral suppression. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 27(1), 145-156. Web.