Capstone Project

Abstract

Background: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is an issue in Kansas City, especially among homeless/unstably housed populations. The Kansas City Health Department initiated the KC Life 360 program to address the disproportionate HIV incidence rates in the Kansas City Transitional Grant Area (TGA). KC Life 360 provides housing related and employment services to homeless/unstable housed populations in the TGA. Objective: The purpose of this capstone was to conduct a program evaluation on KC Life 360 and to examine the effectiveness of the intervention. The focus was to understand relation between stable housing/employment and HIV health outcomes. Result and finding can improve the program’s efficiency. Multipurpose regression model was conducted to demonstrate relation and understand between cost and viral load suppression at time of entry, as well as other variables. Method: Evaluation results were drawn based on data analysis of Gap Lodging (one of the housing components in KC Life 360) along with demographic information. Results: Results from Gap Lodging show that of the 17 participants, 77% maintained or improved their HIV health throughout their stay, but 23% showed no improvement. Discussion: The program has demonstrated that stable housing can positively influence one’s HIV outcomes. This pioneering program showed the efficiency of housing intervention and advocated for it to be applied in the public health field. It also helped establish future studies which it can be used as a guideline for those studies to obtain their strengths, continue to build upon it and remove the limitations in order to see better outcomes. Conclusion: Findings showed that stable housing and employment are strongly related with HIV care in the homeless/unstably housed populations. This indicates that there are needs for more similar programs in order to stop this epidemic in the U.S.