Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

Homelessness is an issue that poses challenges to effective pandemic planning. Homeless individuals rarely have control over factors that impact their health within agencies like shelters and drop-in centres. The policies and practices enacted by agencies - like communal sleeping, bathing, and eating, use of inadequate ventilation systems, and infrequent disinfection of common areas - can be detrimental to the health of service-users, particularly in times of pandemic outbreak when the risk of disease transmission is increased. In 2009 and 2010 the Canadian Institutes of Health Research funded two studies investigating the capacity of homelessness sectors across Canada to manage pandemic outbreaks. The H1N1 pandemic served as a case study for analysis. In Toronto, interviews and surveys were conducted with 149 homeless persons, 15 social service providers, and 5 key stakeholders, to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of the collective homelessness sector response. Among the most pressing of the findings was that social service providers feel inadequately prepared to address pandemic outbreaks, given their lack of training as health care workers. This dissemination grant will be used to increase pandemic preparedness capacity within Ontario-based homelessness sectors, through a series of knowledge translation initiatives. Forty individuals, including researchers, policy makers, social service providers, and persons with lived experience of homelessness, will be hosted at a one day educational workshop, on May 12 2015, in Toronto. The workshop will include presentations about the research findings, group discussions, and a panel discussion between pandemic preparedness experts at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels. Following the workshop, video and plain language written outputs will be made freely available on the Homeless Hub website. The knowledge shared will improve pandemic preparedness for those in the homelessness sector.