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

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

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

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