Characteristics of included studies
| Study | Country | Design | Population | Intervention | Focus | CASP risk to rigour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Couch 201740 | Australia | Semistructured interviews | n = 24 (10 women and 14 men) aged 15 to 24 years | Natural history study, no intervention | To open up new areas of social enquiry and address the limited research focusing on refugee young people and homelessness. | Low |
| Couch 201139 | Australia | Face-to-face dialogic interviews | n = 9 (5 women and 4 men) aged 19 to 25 years | Natural history study, no intervention | To focus on the voices of refugee young people experiencing homelessness. | Medium |
| Couch 201235 | Australia | Interviews | n = 9 (5 women and 4 men) aged 19 to 25 years | Natural history study, no intervention | To evaluate the perception of refugee young people experiencing homelessness regarding service delivery and provision. | Low |
| D’Addario et al. 200744 | Canada | Semistructured interviews and surveys | 12 semistructured interviews, 36 individual interviews and 554 surveys | Natural history study, no intervention | To evaluate the role of social capital in housing trajectories of immigrants, with particular attention to the experiences of refugee claimants. | Low |
| Dwyer and Brown 200838 | UK | Interviews and mini focus group | n = 23 (13 men and 10 women) aged 27 to 54 years | Natural history study, no intervention | To outline the tiering of housing entitlement that exists within the generic population of dispersed forced migrants, and its role in rendering migrants susceptible to homelessness. | Low |
| Flatau et al. 20156 | Australia | A cross-sectional survey, focus group discussions and transcent walks | n = 20 (15 men, 4 women and 1 unknown), 19 of whom were aged between 22 and 51 years | Natural history study, no intervention | To report on the findings of the Refugees and Homelessness Survey that was completed with refugees experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness. | Low |
| Im 201137 | US | In-depth individual interviews | n = 26 (4 men and 22 women), mean age 36.6 years | Natural history study, no intervention | To explore the mental health of refugee families in the socioecological contexts of displacement and homelessness, and to investigate stressors and coping in relation to transition of resources, including social capital of refugee families. | Low |
| Kissoon 201036 | Canada | Interviews | n = 34 migrants (18 women, 16 men), 27 key informants from nongovernmental organization, legal and health sectors. | Natural history study, no intervention | To focus on the refugee determination system to draw attention to the intersection of illegality and vulnerability to persecution, and to identify the characteristics and homelessness experiences of nonstatus or undocumented migrant participants in Vancouver and Toronto. | Medium |
| Mostowska 201342 | Norway | Narrative interviews and informal conversations | n = 40 aged from 23 to 62 years, most between 35–55 years | Natural history study, no intervention | To discuss the results of fieldwork conducted among migrants of Polish descent experiencing homelessness in Oslo, Norway, with focus on the social networks that are a part of the migrants’ social capital. | Medium |
| Mostowska 201243 | Belgium | Field notes, informal conversations and individual interviews | n = 45 (6 women, 39 men) people of Polish descent who had been sleeping rough or reported an episode of rough sleeping in the recent past. Thirteen of the men were older than 55 years, and 16 people were younger than 35 years | Natural history study, no intervention | To acknowledge homelessness among migrants of Polish descent in Brussels and analyze their narratives using Julian Wolpert’s concept of “place utility” to confront the way they talk about their adaptation to the environment with the risks and opportunities they attach to staying in Brussels and to their possible return migration to Poland. | High |
| Paradis et al. 200845 | Canada | Interviews | n = 91 women-led homeless families | Immigrant and refugee families v. Canadian-born families experiencing homelessness. Each woman was interviewed 3 times over the course of a year. | To understand homelessness among immigrant and refugee families to improve public policy and programs for these families. | Medium |
| Sjollema et al. 201246 | Canada | Semistructured interviews | n = 26 women, most aged between 20 to 40 years | Natural history study, no intervention | To provide a context for understanding homelessness among newcomer women and to summarize the history of the found poem in a variety of disciplines with an emphasis on “social work and the arts” context. | Medium |
| Walsh et al. 201547 | Canada | Semistructured, open-ended interviews | n = 26 women aged from 22–64 years | Natural history study, no intervention | To explore housing insecurity among newcomer women to Montréal, Canada. | Low |
| Polillo and Sylvestre 201948 | Canada | In-depth interviews | n = 36 (23 foreign-born families, 13 Canadian-born families). Mean age for the foreign-born sample was 38.27 years (SD 9.57); 73.9% of the foreign-born sample are women | Foreign-born v. Canadian-born families | To investigate the experiences of foreign-born families in the 4 years before becoming homeless. | Low |
| Polillo et al. 201749 | Canada | Interviews with adult heads of families | n = 75 (Canadian-born interviewees: 6 men, 20 women, mean age 33.8 years; foreign-born: 14 men, 34 women, mean age 36.8 years) | Foreign-born v. Canadian-born people | To evaluate the health of foreign-born families staying in the emergency shelter system in Ottawa, and to compare their experiences to Canadian-born families who are also living in shelters. | Low |
| St-Arnault and Merali 201841 | Canada | Interviews | n = 19 (11 women, 8 men), aged 29 to 73 years, mean age 39 years | Natural history study, no intervention | To investigate pathways out of homelessness among a mixed sample of adult refugees who had experienced absolute or relative homelessness after their arrival in Canada, but who eventually became adequately settled in one of Canada’s large urban centres in Alberta. | Low |
| Ravnbøl 201751 | Denmark | Semistructured interviews | n = 40 | Natural history study, no intervention | To address health concerns and access to health services among migrants of Roma descent in the European Union, from a perspective of Romanian Roma who live in homelessness in Copenhagen. | Medium |
| Hanley et al. 201850 | Canada | Semistructured, open-ended interviews | n = 26 women aged 20 to 65 years | Natural history study, no intervention | To explore how health intersects with the experience of housing insecurity and homelessness, specifically for migrant women. | Low |
Note: CASP = Critical Appraisal Skills Programme, SD = standard deviation.