Housing is a significant determinant of health and is widely accepted as a key solution to address some of the health disparities that exist among the homeless. It is estimated that 150 million people worldwide are homeless, and approximately 1.8 billion lack adequate housing. However, understanding of how housing has a positive impact on the health of the homeless remains unclear and underdeveloped. This systematic review investigates intervention studies that report on the physical and mental health effects of housing homeless persons. A search of PubMed, PsycINFO, EBSCOHost-Academic Search Complete and the Cochrane Library was conducted for peer-reviewed articles published in English from 1999 to 2020 that had a combination of at least one housing intervention and health outcome, with a homeless sample. Three previous reviews and 24 studies were included for analysis. Most of the studies (n = 20) encompassed permanent supportive housing interventions that emphasised placing homeless people with mental illness directly into affordable housing with access to support services. The primary health outcomes reported were general physical and mental health, well-being, and quality of life. Despite inconsistent findings and significant issues identified in the reviewed literature, housing (in the short term) improves some aspects of health in homeless populations with human immunodeficiency virus, anxiety and depression.

Introduction: Childhood maltreatment (CM) and depression are serious global issues with high prevalence and lifelong impacts on physical and mental health. CM has been proposed as a modifiable risk factor for depression that, if prevented, may contribute to a reduction in the global incidence of depressive disorders. Despite this, there is a paucity of reviews examining the strength of the association between these variables. The aim of this systematic review and meta‐analysis was to evaluate the empirical evidence and determine if CM is supported as a preventable risk factor for depression.Methods: A search was performed in July 2024 for all peer‐reviewed journal articles written in English examining the relationship between CM and adult depression in the electronic databases EBSCOhost, Proquest, and Embase. Studies were included in this review if they measured maltreatment before 18 years of age as the independent variable and adult depression as the dependent variable. Studies were excluded if the outcome variable was grouped with comorbidity and if they did not report primary quantitative data. A total of 77 studies with 516,302 participants met the inclusion criteria for review.Results: A random‐effects meta‐analysis was used to generate a pooled odds ratio from 87 effect estimates and demonstrated that individuals with a history of any CM are 2.5 times more likely to experience adult depression (OR = 2.49 [95% CI: 2.25–2.76]). This increase in odds remained regardless of how the primary studies screened for depression.Conclusions: These findings confirmed the strong association between the experience of CM and adult depression. High heterogeneity in the meta‐analytic results also suggested that further research is required that applies consistent adjustments for comorbidities and confounding factors and examines the temporal relationship between the variables to establish causality.

Introduction: Intimate partner violence (IPV) and depression are global health concerns with high prevalence rates and substantial negative impacts on individuals and the wider community. Women are particularly vulnerable to both IPV victimization and depressive disorders, and both are recognized worldwide as priorities for women's health. The aim of this systematic review and meta‐analysis was to determine whether recent longitudinal empirical evidence supports exposure to IPV as a contributing factor to the subsequent onset of depression in women.Methods: A search was performed in August 2024 of the Medline, PsychInfo, and EBSCOHost databases for longitudinal studies published after the year 2013, and 1193 studies were identified. Studies were included if they were written in English and measured IPV as an independent variable with depression as a dependent variable. Studies were excluded if depression was not measured separately from other variables or did not report primary quantitative data. Eleven studies with 118,544 female participants met the inclusion criteria for review.Results: Ten of the 11 reviewed studies reported a statistically significant positive association between exposure to IPV and depression in women. A random effects meta‐analysis was used to generate pooled odds ratios from nine estimates, which demonstrated that female IPV survivors have significantly increased odds of developing subsequent depression (OR = 1.92, (95% CI: 1.28, 2.86); although, there was high heterogeneity across studies (I² = 98.3%, p < 0.001). Ten of the 11 studies were from high‐income, industrialized countries, which limits the global application of these findings.Conclusions: These findings suggest that IPV may be one of many contributing factors for depression in women. However, variability in the definition of IPV and inconsistent adjustment for confounders across studies limits firm conclusions. The findings of this review suggest that strategies to prevent IPV could play a role in reducing the prevalence of depression. They also support the inclusion of depression screening for survivors of IPV in clinical approaches and a review of the effectiveness of IPV‐related depression intervention strategies.