Dealing with Transient Living Situations among Underserved Populations
We work with several community asthma programs that provides in-home interventions through multi-year home visits for an underserved community. Many of the programs do report that families are lost to follow-up but some programs diligently track the children. Many of the children live in transient households – for example, a child could move up to move three times in one year by living with mother, father or grandparents; as a result the program will provide three sets of home visits, trainings and supplies.
Does anyone have suggestions on how home visit programs can effectively incorporate the transient nature of some communities? How do you track the child’s address? How do you keep costs down?
Finally, how do you evaluate success? For example, do you count children served or homes assessed and remediated?