Adolescent Trajectories for Homelessness and Risk for HIV

Scope:
A representative sample of FTR will be recruited in LA, CA and Melbourne, Australia (n=480) stratified by gender (120 males & 120 females per city; aged 11-17 years). Across cities, information will be collected at recruitment, 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 month intervals from youth regarding four domains:

1) the individual’s risk for HIV (substance use & sexual behaviors) and chronic homelessness;

2) street experiences (daily activities, survival strategies, violence, delinquent acts and school/employment patterns) and personal resources (social identifiers, goals, coping styles, psychiatric distress);

3) the contest of the peers’ risk acts and community factors (e.g. service provider, policy factors, and informal networks) that influence youth’s response to becoming homeless; and

4) background characteristics of the youth and their families.

To further understand the social and structural context of youth’s HIV-related developmental trajectories, the empirical assessments of the FTR will be complemented by qualitative case descriptions gathered from three additional sources:

1) annual empirical assessment of samples of Experienced Runaways (three cross-sectional samples gathered annually, n=200 per city), in order to describe differences in the culture of homelessness over time and the drift over time in the similarity/differences between Experienced Runaways and FTR;

2) case studies of HIV-related policies and service providers for runaways in each city (n=20); and 3) qualitative interviews of a subset of FTR regarding their social networks (n=25/city).