A Quasi-Experiment comparing the health of unhoused people who have and have not experienced an eviction in King County, WA

2026-04-16

AI Summary

This study investigates the causal effects of housing eviction on health outcomes and substance use among individuals experiencing homelessness. Leveraging a quasi-experimental design with data from 1,106 unhoused individuals in King County, Washington, and rigorously controlling for confounding variables, the research provides the first quantitative estimates of the net impact of eviction on physical health and substance use disorders. The findings indicate that experiencing eviction significantly increases the probability of reporting poor self-rated health by 8.3 percentage points and raises the risk of substance use disorder by 9.5%, while showing no statistically significant effect on mental health. These results address a critical gap in the literature by offering causal evidence on how housing instability affects health in this highly vulnerable population.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Causal Learning
• Reasoning under Uncertainty: Causality
• Multiagent Systems: Agent-Based Simulation and Emergent Behavior

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: The sharing economy
• Social Networks and Social Media: Fairness and bias in social network and social media analysis
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Fairness-aware retrieval and ranking

Abstract

Home eviction poses a significant threat to housing stability, a critical determinant of health. This study examines the relationship between eviction and health and substance use within the unhoused population of King County, Washington. Using a sample of 1,106 individuals experiencing homelessness, we employed a quasi-experimental design to compare the health outcomes of those who have experienced eviction with those who have not. Our findings reveal eviction is associated with an 8.3% point increase (SE = 0.039) in the likelihood of reporting poor general health and an 9.5% increase (SE = 0.032) in substance use disorder. No significant effect was found for mental health outcomes. While these results highlight the severe health risks linked to eviction, further research with more precise estimates is necessary to better understand long-term effects. These findings contribute to the growing evidence of how home eviction undermines the well-being of vulnerable populations.

Problem

• eviction
• homelessness
• health outcomes
• substance use
• housing instability

Innovation

• quasi-experimental design
• housing eviction
• health disparities
• substance use disorder
• homelessness