information for practice

Homeless adults had a substantially higher death rate than the general NYC population. The leading killers were heart disease and cancer, the same as the overall population. However, substance abuse and HIV/AIDS accounted for nearly one-third of all deaths, compared with less than 5% in the general NYC adult population. Homeless people also suffer from many conditions that diminish their health but are not necessarily fatal, creating higher rates of illness than in the non-homeless population.