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Abstract
This paper describes alcohol and drug-use disorders among 210 homeless people in Australia, and compares the Australian findings with the international literature. While the prevalence of alcohol-use disorders among people who are homeless in Australia is comparable with other international studies, drug-use disorders appear to be more prevalent among Australian homeless than comparable international studies. Reasons for this difference are explored.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Maree Teesson
Maree Teesson, Associate Professor, is a Deputy Director at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Prior to this she was the Director of the Mental Health Service Unit at St. Vincent's Hospital, Sydney. She has a long standing interest in mental health and substance-use research, including clinical outcome and epidemiological studies of the prevalence and treatment of these disorders and has published over 40 peer-reviewed papers, two books, four book chapters, and over 30 reports in the area. She is influential among service providers and consumers as the past president and founding member of The Mental Health Services (The MHS) Conference Inc. of Australia and New Zealand. The MHS is the largest mental health conference in Australia and New Zealand, attracting over 1500 delegates, and it has been held annually since 1990. Dr. Teesson has strong links to mental health policy as a member of both state and commonwealth government committees and is the coordinator for commonwealth initiatives, including the National Comorbidity Project. She currently has over $1.2 million dollars in investigator-initiated research grants.
Tracey Hodder
Tracey Hodder has worked with people who are homeless in inner Sydney for 10 years, including as a welfare worker for 18 months. She has an economics degree from the University of Western Australia. Her initial work in this field was to document the health problems of homeless men at a 400-bed refuge in inner Sydney. She then worked with other homeless persons’ services in New South Wales on projects which have included: aged care for homeless people, the mental health of homeless people, and pathways to homelessness (in progress). She is currently investigating the ways in which people become homeless in Australia.
Neil Buhrich
Neil Buhrich holds positions as Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Sydney, and Senior Consultant Psychiatrist for the Central Sydney Area Health Service. He has initiated services and established outreach clinics for people with mental illness in the inner Sydney refuges for the homeless. His services to psychiatry and the community have been recognized with the award of Order of Australia (AM). He has published widely on topics related to homelessness, particularly the homeless mentally ill.