# Capturing the Dynamics of Homelessness through Ethnography and Mobile Technology

> **NIH VA I01** · EDITH NOURSE  ROGERS MEMORIAL VETERANS HOSPITAL · 2022 · —

## Abstract

Background: On a given night around 40,000 Veterans are homeless and another 300,000 are at risk. Many
of these Veterans have complex health and social needs, and they experience frequent residential transitions
which can disrupt access to healthcare and treatment adherence. Many persons who are housing unstable
experience frequent residential transitions, such as from transitional housing to shelter, or from doubled up with
family/friend to living out of a car. Disruptions caused by such transitions likely contribute to this population's
poor health by interfering with access to care and treatment adherence. Despite the potential harm, there is a
major gap in detailed, contextual knowledge of these transitions, especially from the perspective of the
individuals experiencing them – such as their in-the-moment emotions, behaviors, geographic movements, and
social support. Filling this gap would improve knowledge of Veterans' trajectories into and out of
homelessness and their day-to-day barriers to health care and other services. New approaches are needed.
Research has shown that most persons experiencing homelessness have mobile phones, and increasingly
they are smartphones. This provides an opportunity to gather near real-time information, at relatively low cost,
that would help improve understanding of Veterans' changes in housing, health, mood, and use of services.
Significance/Impact: Homelessness among Veterans represents one of the worst failures of our national and
VA health care and social service systems. Health is poor, and life expectancy for homeless persons is 10 to
20 years shorter than for housed populations. The work proposed here will contribute to VA priorities of
improving access to care, increasing virtual care/telehealth, and improving the health of homeless Veterans.
Innovation: We propose the first significant test of passive and active mobile phone data collection among
homeless Veterans, including the use of global positioning system (GPS) location and ecological momentary
assessment (EMA) to improve understanding of context, mobility, and distance to services. These methods
can change how health services researchers think about collecting data from marginalized and hidden
populations. These techniques can identify sequences of micro-temporal events, for example teasing apart the
events and experiences that immediately precede (and follow) the transition from one housing type to the next,
or the events that led to a missed healthcare opportunity (e.g. a missed appointment).
Specific Aims: This study assesses the feasibility of smartphone data collection from homeless Veterans.
Aim 1: Characterize the real-time lived experience of homeless Veterans, including day-to-day activities,
interactions with services, and residential transitions using a formative ethnographic approach;
Aim 2: Refine and tailor smartphone data collection methods;
Aim 3: Conduct a 4-week demonstration of smartphone data collection to evaluate its acc...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10242621
- **Project number:** 5I01HX002754-02
- **Recipient organization:** EDITH NOURSE  ROGERS MEMORIAL VETERANS HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** Donald Keith McInnes
- **Activity code:** I01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-08-01 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10242621

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10242621, Capturing the Dynamics of Homelessness through Ethnography and Mobile Technology (5I01HX002754-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10242621. Licensed CC0.

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