Residential Mobility of a Cohort of Homeless People in Times of Crisis: COVID-19 Pandemic in a European Metropolis

Agathe Allibert, Aurélie Tinland, Jordi Landier, Sandrine Loubière, Jean Gaudart, Marine Mosnier, Cyril Farnarier, Pascal Auquier and Emilie Mosnier
Additional contact information
Agathe Allibert: Department of Psychiatry, Assistance Publique—Hôpitaux de Marseille, 13385 Marseille, France
Aurélie Tinland: Department of Psychiatry, Assistance Publique—Hôpitaux de Marseille, 13385 Marseille, France
Jordi Landier: Aix Marseille Univ, IRD, INSERM, SESSTIM, ISSPAM, AP-HM, La Timone Hospital, BioSTIC, Biostatistic & ICT, 13005 Marseille, France
Sandrine Loubière: EA 3279: CEReSS—Health Service Research and Quality of Life Center, School of Medicine—La Timone Medical Campus, Aix-Marseille University, 13005 Marseille, France
Jean Gaudart: Aix Marseille Univ, IRD, INSERM, SESSTIM, ISSPAM, AP-HM, La Timone Hospital, BioSTIC, Biostatistic & ICT, 13005 Marseille, France
Marine Mosnier: Médecins du Monde—Doctors of the World, 13003 Marseille, France
Cyril Farnarier: Laboratoire de Sciences Sociales Appliquées/Projet ASSAb, 13001 Marseille, France
Pascal Auquier: EA 3279: CEReSS—Health Service Research and Quality of Life Center, School of Medicine—La Timone Medical Campus, Aix-Marseille University, 13005 Marseille, France
Emilie Mosnier: Department of Psychiatry, Assistance Publique—Hôpitaux de Marseille, 13385 Marseille, France

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 5, 1-24

Abstract: Most vulnerable individuals are particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study takes place in a large city in France. The aim of this study is to describe the mobility of the homeless population at the beginning of the health crisis and to analyze its impact in terms of COVID-19 prevalence. From June to August 2020 and September to December 2020, 1272 homeless people were invited to be tested for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and virus and complete questionnaires. Our data show that homeless populations are sociologically different depending on where they live. We show that people that were living on the street were most likely to be relocated to emergency shelters than other inhabitants. Some neighborhoods are points of attraction for homeless people in the city while others emptied during the health crisis, which had consequences for virus circulation. People with a greater number of different dwellings reported became more infected. This first study of the mobility and epidemiology of homeless people in the time of the pandemic provides unique information about mobility mapping, sociological factors of this mobility, mobility at different scales, and epidemiological consequences. We suggest that homeless policies need to be radically transformed since the actual model exposes people to infection in emergency.

Keywords: SARS-CoV2; COVID-19; homeless people; public health; vulnerable population; seroprevalence; cohort; residential mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/5/3129/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/5/3129/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:5:p:3129-:d:765760

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().