Delayed Hospital Discharge More Than Four Times Higher Among Those Experiencing Homelessness

For hospitalized individuals with a recent experience of homelessness, the likelihood of a delayed discharge was 4.51 times higher than the risk among people who had not recently experienced homelessness, according to a recent Canadian study. The average stay of an individual with a recent experience of homelessness was nearly five days longer.

The researchers analyzed discharge patterns for 51,377 hospitalized individuals in Ontario, Canada. The participants included people age 16 and older who were discharged from April 1, 2022, to March 31, 2024. The study included an intervention group of 11,168 people who had a recent . . .