By Rita Rubin, JAMA Network, February 5, 2020
Withers, medical director of Pittsburgh Mercy’s Operation Safety Net, coined the term street medicine more than a quarter-century ago to describe his team’s work.
Street medicine practitioners care for the unsheltered homeless, or “rough sleepers,” where they live—not only on the street but beneath overpasses and bridges, along riverbanks, and behind supermarkets. Research has linked living unsheltered to a greater risk of infectious and chronic diseases and a higher mortality rate.
On a single night in 2019, 37% of the nation’s homeless, or approximately 210 000, were unsheltered, about 9% more than in 2018, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. More than half of the rough sleepers, or 53%, were in California alone.
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