Table 1.
Categorical measures, % | Homeless N = 101 | Not homeless N = 248 | p-value |
Female | 13 | 24 | 0.02 |
Race/ethnicity† | 0.29 | ||
Black | 38 | 47 | |
Hispanic | 26 | 21 | |
White | 37 | 32 | |
High school graduate | 49 | 65 | 0.005 |
Health insurance‡ | 98 | 99.6 | 0.15 |
Prescribed antiretroviral medications§ | 47 | 64 | 0.001 |
Physical injury§ | 17 | 9 | 0.04 |
Physical or sexual abuse | |||
Lifetime | 78 | 82 | 0.40 |
Recent § | 14 | 7 | 0.05 |
Jail § | 36 | 26 | 0.05 |
Substance use|| | |||
Alcohol | 45 | 42 | 0.60 |
Cocaine | 21 | 25 | 0.36 |
Heroin | 16 | 8 | 0.04 |
Continuous measures, N [std] | |||
Age | 40.8 [6.8] | 40.5 [7.5] | 0.70 |
CD4 cell count ¶ | 405 [291] | 399 [273] | 0.90 |
HIV RNA (log10) ¶ | 47K [95K] | 26K [68K] | 0.05 |
Depressive symptoms ** | 27.2 [14.13] | 20.2 [12.08] | < 0.0001 |
Addiction Severity Index: †† | |||
Alcohol composite score | 0.25 [0.25] | 0.18 [0.20] | 0.009 |
Drug composite score | 0.13 [0.12] | 0.11 [0.10] | 0.05 |
* The majority (56%)of study participants were recruited through from the Boston Medical Center HIV Diagnostic Evaluation Unit. The remaining from posted flyers 17%; Boston Medical Center Primary Care Clinic 13%; respite facility for homeless persons 5%; methadone clinic 4%; subject referrals 4%; and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center 2%.
† Categories are not mutually exclusive, so total number will >100%
‡ Private, Medicare, Medicaid, or special publicly funded health insurance for individuals with HIV-infection
§ Previous 6 months
||Previous 30 days
¶ Laboratory tests collected as part of clinical care were used if performed within six months of the interview. When clinical samples were unavailable, the Boston Medical Center Clinical Laboratory evaluated blood samples collected for study purposes.
** Depressive symptoms were measured with the 20-item the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale
†† Range of possible scores 0–1 with a higher score indicating worse addiction severity.