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Gary S. Ferenchick, MD
East Lansing, Mich

Arch Intern Med. 1991;151(7):1462.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

A recent article on the health of homeless clinic patients by Gelberg and colleagues¹ was helpful to those of us who care for this population on a regular basis. Their findings underscore some of the problems and issues encountered when caring for this high-risk population and, additionally, raise several questions.

First, their conclusion that no differences existed in the prevalence of most medical conditions between homeless vs nonhomeless patients confirms previous observations,² and raises the possibility that factors other than current housing status may contribute to the medical problems of homeless persons attending such a clinic.

Second, 46% of their study population were current drug users,³ but only 1% of that population offered "substance abuse" as a reason for visiting the clinic.¹ This relatively high prevalence of drug use and its apparent low recognition as a medical problem undermines the medical treatment of . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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