There is robust evidence that homelessness and the associated life conditions of a homeless person may cause and exacerbate a wide range of health problems, while healthcare for the homeless is simultaneously limited in accessibility, availability, and appropriateness. This article investigates legal frameworks of health care provision, existing knowledge on numbers of homeless to be considered, and current means of health care provision for four EU countries with different economic and public health background: Austria, Greece, Poland, and Romania.

More information is necessary to understand the impact of housing situations in the health of the populations. The Special Issue “Health, housing and homelessness” of the Internationa Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health invites authors from disciplines such as social policies, psychology, public health, medicine, economics, psychology, demography, and sociology to submit their original and review articles related to analysing the impact on health of homelessness situation and housing policies. Papers from European Union and all other countries are welcome.

Potential areas of interest include but not limited to the following: Homelessness health, Mental health and housing situation,Addictions and health in homelessness, Housing and health,Social policies and health in social exclusion, National studies, Prevention policies or interventions.

The feasibility study aimed to assess the acceptability, feasibility and transferability of the electronic personal health record in the framework of the Re-Health project. It focusses on the short piloting of the EPHR in eight sites located in four countries Croatia, Greece, Italy, and Slovenia.

The study builds on three components: a quantitative analysis of the use of EPHR by health care professionals and migrants, a qualitative analysis of acceptability, feasibility and transferability of EPHR and its implementation, and an assessment of characteristics of sites to contextualize data.

CHM is founding member and academic partner in the ‘European network to reduce vulnerabilities in health’, created by Médecins du Monde (MdM)  bringing together NGOs  from 17 EU Member States and 2 EFTA/EEA countries.

The network works on gaining greater capacity and skills through mutual learning about how to improve health service delivery, patient empowerment, common data collection and advocacy.
Common goal is to contribute to decreased EU-wide health inequalities and to more responsive health systems that are better equipped to deal with vulnerability factors that increase health inequalities.

Undocumented migrants (UDM) gain increasing attention in the EU as a vulnerable group exposed to high health risks and challenging public health. Following state-control logic, national regulations often severely restrict access to health care for UDM. At the same time, right to health care has been recognized as human right by various international instruments ratified by European countries. This opens a paradox for health care providers where no matter what they do they act aigainst one or the other regulation. This paradox cannot be resolved on a practice level but has to be managed in a way neither human rights nor national regulations are violated.

The European project entitled “Health Care in NowHereland” has produced the first-ever compilation of the policies and regulations in force in the EU 27, a database of practice models in 11 EU member states and Switzerland, and has made in-depth assessments of selected practice models and provides insights into the ‘daily lives’ of UDM and their struggle to access health care services.