People experiencing homelessness (PEH) in Chicago were 2.5 times less likely to have a COVID-19 infection if they were housed in individual hotel rooms along with medical and social support than if they stayed in a city shelter, according to an observational study yesterday in JAMA Network Open.A team of University of Chicago, Lawndale Christian Health Center, and Chicago Department of Public Health researchers studied infection rates, blood pressures, and hemoglobin A1c of 259 PEH recruited from 16 shelters and housed in hotel rooms leased by the City of Chicago from Apr 2 to Sep 3, 2020.
Their results were compared with those of people staying in shelters, which the authors noted may house as many as 400 people in open rooms.Hemoglobin