ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1613224
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Intersection of Psychology, Healthy Behaviors, and its OutcomesView all 108 articles
Housing Status, Mental Health, and Help-Seeking among American Indian and Alaska Native Veterans in the Midwest
Provisionally accepted
- 1The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, United States
- 2Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, United States
- 3University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: This study aims to examine mental health and help-seeking behaviors among homeless and unstably housed (HUH) and stably housed (SH) American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) and non-AIAN veterans in the Midwest. Methods: The study cohort consisted of veterans in the Veterans Affairs (VA) service catchment area called the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 23. Data from the Homeless Operations Management and Evaluation System (HOMES) were analyzed with descriptive statistics and the Mantel-Haenszel odds ratio with Wald confidence intervals, and the Breslow-Day test. Results: Of the 7,260 veterans in the study, 5,771 (80/9%) were HUH. Among non-AIAN participants, 5,453 (80.8%) experienced HUH, compared to 318 (84.6%) of AIAN veterans. The Breslow-Day test revealed significant differences in the association between housing status and certain service needs between AIAN and non-AIAN veterans. Conclusion: This study highlights notable differences in housing status, mental health conditions, and service needs between AIAN and non-AIAN veterans in the Midwest.
Keywords: American Indian and Alaska Native, Veterans, Frontier and Remote Area, Mental Health, rural
Received: 16 Apr 2025; Accepted: 03 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Umucu, Lee, Chang and Tsai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Emre Umucu, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.