Behavioral Health: All Related Resources

Managed alcohol program (MAPs) manage alcohol consumption by providing eligible individuals with regular doses of alcohol as a part of a structured program and often offer housing and other social services. UCSF BHHI researchers found that benefits of MAPs included improved quality of life, reduced alcohol consumption, less hazardous consumption, and potential stabilizations in biological markers of alcohol use during MAP participation. Researchers found MAP participants reported substantial benefits, including increased feelings of safety and security, reconnection with community, sense of belonging, improved self-efficacy, and a positive reconciliation of internalized shame and stigma.

People experiencing homelessness (PEH) have a high rate of tobacco use. Researchers examined factors associated with cigarette consumption and quit attempts. They found having an encounter with staff in the past week was associated with a 40% reduction in weekly consumption. The findings highlight the role of community-based pharmacists to expand smoking cessation services in homeless shelters.

This study from UCSF BHHI researchers examined deaths among people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. They found 82% of 331 deaths were associated with drug overdose, not COVID-19 infection. Traumatic injury, including homicide and suicide, was the second most common cause of death. This research highlights a need for strategies that address both homelessness and drug use, including housing, evidence-based treatment of opioid addiction, and overdose prevention programs.

This UCSF study examined deaths among people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco from 2016 to 2018. Although heart disease and cancer are the first and second causes of death for California’s general population, the leading causes of homeless deaths were acute intoxication (unintended overdose) and trauma (including homicide and suicide rates over triple that of the US general population). The authors advocate that these differences in cause-specific mortality should inform death prevention efforts within the homeless population differently than the general population.