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IntroductionWhile much of the literature on homelessness is centred on the experience of men, women make up over one-quarter of Canada’s homeless population. Research has shown that women experiencing homelessness are often hidden (i.e. provisionally housed) and have different pathways into homelessness and different needs as compared to men. The objective of this research is to identify evidence-based interventions and best practices to better support women experiencing or at risk of homelessness. MethodsWe conducted a scoping review with a gender and equity analysis. This involved searching MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO and other databases for systematic reviews and randomized trials, supplementing our search through reference scanning and grey literature, followed by a qualitative synthesis of the evidence that examined gender and equity considerations. ResultsOf the 4102 articles identified on homelessness interventions, only 4 systematic reviews and 9 randomized trials were exclusively conducted on women or published disaggregated data enabling a gender analysis. Interventions with the strongest evidence included post-shelter advocacy counselling for women experiencing homelessness due to intimate partner violence, as well as case management and permanent housing subsidies (e.g. tenant-based rental assistance vouchers), which were shown to reduce homelessness, food insecurity, exposure to violence and psychosocial distress, as well as promote school stability and child well-being. ConclusionMuch of the evidence on interventions to better support women experiencing homelessness focusses on those accessing domestic violence or family shelters. Since many more women are experiencing or at risk of hidden homelessness, population-based strategies are also needed to reduce gender inequity and exposure to violence, which are among the main structural drivers of homelessness among women.

IntroductionBien qu’une grande partie de la littérature sur l’itinérance porte principalement sur l’expérience des hommes, les femmes forment plus du quart de la populationdes sans-abri au Canada. Des études ont montré que les femmes en situation d’itinérance sont souvent cachées (c. à.-d. qu’elles sont logées provisoirement) et qu’à la fois le parcours qui les a menées à l’itinérance et leurs besoins sont différents de ceux des hommes. Cette recherche vise à cibler des interventions fondées sur des données probantes et des pratiques exemplaires aptes à mieux soutenir les femmes en situation ou à risque d’itinérance. MéthodologieNous avons effectué un examen de la portée accompagné d’une analyse fondée sur le sexe et l’équité. Pour ce faire, nous avons effectué des recherches dans MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO et d’autres bases de données afin de sélectionner les revues systématiques et les essais randomisés. Nous avons complété ces recherches par un passage en revue des références et de la littérature grise puis nous avons effectué une synthèse qualitative des données probantes portant sur les éléments liés au genre et à l’équité. RésultatsDes 4102 articles axés sur les interventions auprès de sans-abri que nous avons recensés, seuls 4 revues systématiques et 9 essais randomisés portaient exclusivement sur des femmes ou contenaient des données désagrégées permettant d’effectuer une analyse comparative entre les sexes. Parmi les interventions comportant les données les plus solides, mentionnons le counseling sur la défense des intérêts des femmes qui, après un passage en refuge, se retrouvent en situation d’itinérance pour cause de violence familiale, ainsi que la gestion de cas et les subventions pour un logement fixe (comme des bons d’aide au logement pour les locataires). Chacune de ces interventions a permis non seulement de réduire l’itinérance, l’insécurité alimentaire, l’exposition à la violence, aux refuges, l’insécurité alimentaire et la détresse psychosociale mais aussi de promouvoir la stabilité scolaire et le bien-être des enfants. ConclusionDes 4102 articles axés sur les interventions auprès de sans-abri que nous avons recensés, seuls 4 revues systématiques et 9 essais randomisés portaient exclusivement sur des femmes ou contenaient des données désagrégées permettant d’effectuer une analyse comparative entre les sexes. Parmi les interventions comportant les données les plus solides, mentionnons le counseling sur la défense des intérêts des femmes qui, après un passage en refuge, se retrouvent en situation d’itinérance pour cause de violence familiale, ainsi que la gestion de cas et les subventions pour un logement fixe (comme des bons d’aide au logement pour les locataires). Chacune de ces interventions a permis non seulement de réduire l’itinérance, l’insécurité alimentaire, l’exposition à la violence, aux refuges, l’insécurité alimentaire et la détresse psychosociale mais aussi de promouvoir la stabilité scolaire et le bien-être des enfants.

Background: High‐income countries offer social assistance (welfare) programs to help alleviate poverty for people with little or no income. These programs have become increasingly conditional and stringent in recent decades based on the premise that transitioning people from government support to paid work will improve their circumstances. However, many people end up with low‐paying and precarious jobs that may cause more poverty because they lose benefits such as housing subsidies and health and dental insurance, while incurring job‐related expenses. Conditional assistance programs are also expensive to administer and cause stigma. A guaranteed basic income (GBI) has been proposed as a more effective approach for alleviating poverty, and several experiments have been conducted in high‐income countries to investigate whether GBI leads to improved outcomes compared to existing social programs. Objectives: The aim of this review was to conduct a synthesis of quantitative evidence on GBI interventions in high‐income countries, to compare the effectiveness of various types of GBI versus "usual care" (including existing social assistance programs) in improving poverty‐related outcomes. Search Methods: Searches of 16 academic databases were conducted in May 2022, using both keywords and database‐specific controlled vocabulary, without limits or restrictions on language or date. Sources of gray literature (conference, governmental, and institutional websites) were searched in September 2022. We also searched reference lists of review articles, citations of included articles, and tables of contents of relevant journals in September 2022. Hand searching for recent publications was conducted until December 2022. Selection Criteria: We included all quantitative study designs except cross‐sectional (at one timepoint), with or without control groups. We included studies in high income countries with any population and with interventions meeting our criteria for GBI: unconditional, with regular payments in cash (not in‐kind) that were fixed or predictable in amount. Although two primary outcomes of interest were selected a priori (food insecurity, and poverty level assessed using official, national, or international measures), we did not screen studies on the basis of reported outcomes because it was not possible to define all potentially relevant poverty‐related outcomes in advance. Data Collection and Analysis: We followed the Campbell Collaboration conduct and reporting guidelines to ensure a rigorous methodology. The risk of bias was assessed across seven domains: confounding, selection, attrition, motivation, implementation, measurement, and analysis/reporting. We conducted meta‐analyses where results could be combined; otherwise, we presented the results in tables. We reported effect estimates as standard mean differences (SMDs) if the included studies reported them or provided sufficient data for us to calculate them. To compare the effects of different types of interventions, we developed a GBI typology based on the characteristics of experimental interventions as well as theoretical conceptualizations of GBI. Eligible poverty‐related outcomes were classified into categories and sub‐categories, to facilitate the synthesis of the individual findings. Because most of the included studies analyzed experiments conducted by other researchers, it was necessary to divide our analysis according to the "experiment" stage (i.e. design, recruitment, intervention, data collection) and the "study" stage (data analysis and reporting of results). Main Results: Our searches yielded 24,476 records from databases and 80 from other sources. After screening by title and abstract, the full texts of 294 potentially eligible articles were retrieved and screened, resulting in 27 included studies on 10 experiments. Eight of the experiments were RCTs, one included both an RCT site and a "saturation" site, and one used a repeated cross‐sectional design. The duration ranged from one to 5 years. The control groups in all 10 experiments received "usual care" (i.e. no GBI intervention). The total number of participants was unknown because some of the studies did not report exact sample sizes. Of the studies that did, the smallest had 138 participants and the largest had 8019. The risk of bias assessments found "some concerns" for at least one domain in all 27 studies and "high risk" for at least one domain in 25 studies. The risk of bias was assessed as high in 21 studies due to attrition and in 22 studies due to analysis and reporting bias. To compare the interventions, we developed a classification framework of five GBI types, four of which were implemented in the experiments, and one that is used in new experiments now underway. The included studies reported 176 poverty‐related outcomes, including one pre‐defined primary outcome: food insecurity. The second primary outcome (poverty level assessed using official, national, or international measures) was not reported in any of the included studies. We classified the reported outcomes into seven categories: food insecurity (as a category), economic/material, physical health, psychological/mental health, social, educational, and individual choice/agency. Food insecurity was reported in two studies, both showing improvements (SMD = −0.57, 95% CI: −0.65 to −0.49, and SMD = −0.41, 95% CI: −0.57 to −0.26) which were not pooled because of different study designs. We conducted meta‐analyses on four secondary outcomes that were reported in more than one study: subjective financial well‐being, self‐rated overall physical health, self‐rated life satisfaction, and self‐rated mental distress. Improvements were reported, except for overall physical health or if the intervention was similar to existing social assistance. The results for the remaining 170 outcomes, each reported in only one study, were summarized in tables by category and subcategory. Adverse effects were reported in some studies, but only for specific subgroups of participants, and not consistently, so these results may have been due to chance. Authors' Conclusions: The results of the included studies were difficult to synthesize because of the heterogeneity in the reported outcomes. This was due in part to poverty being multidimensional, so outcomes covered various aspects of life (economic, social, psychological, educational, agency, mental and physical health). Evidence from future studies would be easier to assess if outcomes were measured using more common, validated instruments. Based on our analysis of the included studies, a supplemental type of GBI (provided along with existing programs) may be effective in alleviating poverty‐related outcomes. This approach may also be safer than a wholesale reform of existing social assistance approaches, which could have unintended consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Health Organization's new End TB Strategy emphasises socioeconomic interventions to reduce access barriers to TB care and address the social determinants of TB. To facilitate developing interventions that align with this strategy, we examined how TB vulnerability and vulnerable populations were defined in literature, with the aim to propose a definition and operational criteria for TB vulnerable populations through social determinants of health and equity perspectives. We searched for documents providing explicit definition of TB vulnerability or list of TB vulnerable populations. Guided by the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health framework, we synthesised the definitions, compiled vulnerable populations, developed a conceptual framework of TB vulnerability, and derived definition and criteria for TB vulnerable populations. We defined TB vulnerable populations as those whose context leads to disadvantaged socioeconomic positions that expose them to systematically higher risks of TB, but having limited access to TB care, thus leading to TB infection or progression to TB disease. We propose that TB vulnerable populations can be determined in three dimensions: disadvantaged socioeconomic position, higher risks of TB infection or progression to disease, and poor access to TB care. Examining TB vulnerability facilitates identification and support of vulnerable populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]