Ben King, Ph.D. M.P.H., is a clinical assistant professor at UHCOM and serves on the National Health Care for the Homeless Council's Research Committee. Dr. King’s team at UHCOM has studied homelessness mortality in Harris County, with the goal of gathering useful data that can help prevent the deaths of people experiencing homelessness. While much research has been done to understand who is affected, Dr. King’s team has been limited by lack of access to data prior to death.

Challenges with Interventions for Individuals Experiencing Homelessness

Traditionally, health and social data is siloed, and there are limited opportunities to connect data for in-depth studies on Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) for people who have passed away, especially for populations of individuals experiencing homelessness, who may go by multiple aliases or move frequently.

Now, with access to PCIC’s powerful Community Data eXchange (CDX) tool to track SDoH going back five years prior to death, Dr. King’s team will be able to better understand the holistic health of individuals who passed away while experiencing homelessness.

With insights from these trends, key players such as social and healthcare organizations, as well as non-profits and government officials in the Houston area can make an impact where it matters most: planning data-driven interventions and care for people experiencing homelessness in Houston.

The data team at PCIC hopes to continue partnering with community leaders throughout Houston to support these interventions using insights from the CDX to lower mortality rates of Houstonians experiencing homelessness.

Holistic Care is a Human Right

This partnership between PCIC and Dr. King’s team further strengthens the ongoing collaborations between PCIC and UHCOM.

Since 2009, PCIC has worked to help individuals experiencing homelessness to access better care. At PCIC, we envision creating a new reality of integrated effective care that will transform the lives of all people, especially vulnerable populations – a beacon for True Health Equity. We do this by integrating clinical, behavioral, and social determinants of health into serviceable insights that our partners use to drive action.

Partnership with organizations such as UHCOM make this vision possible.

Partner with PCIC

Are you leading the charge to put your community on the path to achievable health and well-being?

A partnership with PCIC can help your team connect with health and well-being data from thousands of agencies. More than a resource for data sharing and analysis, our team at PCIC can help your team with brainstorming the best approaches to implementing and monitoring interventions related to SDoH, and we can develop customized dashboards and reporting tools to monitor the progress of your team’s efforts.

To partner with PCIC, contact us at (281) 404-2379, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or online at https://www.pcictx.org/contact.