About Project HIRE
We are members of the research team at the School of Public Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston).
We are conducting a study to understand how to help people in emergency departments achieve stable housing and good health. Specifically, we are interested in what are services that are effective for people after they visit emergency departments and how to help homeless individuals.
I am inviting you to participate because you have recently received services at the Ben Taub or LBJ Emergency Department and indicated you may be experiencing housing or employment insecurity. If you agree to take part in this study, you will be randomly assigned to join either an Employment-Based Housing Program, receive a referral to community resources, or receive some basic vocational services. This means that you will have a 33% chance (or 1/3 of all participants) will be assigned to either condition.
Regardless of your assignment, you will be invited to complete a 20-30-minute survey today. You will receive invitations for 12 months and be asked to complete a 20-min survey every three months that will ask about your health, housing, and use of healthcare. You may also be invited to participate in three 5-min surveys to describe your experience and satisfaction with the services you have received.
After completing the study, you may be invited to participate in an individual hour-long interview with up to 25 other participants to share cultural considerations and recommendations for improving services. Upon completion of the study, we will review information from your healthcare claims and homeless service use. This includes information about homeless service use and your emergency department use including the reason/diagnosis, dates and charges.
We will only keep information that could identify you long enough to match your responses with your medical records and then personal identifiers will be removed from the data. We will keep identifying information about you, such as your name and contact information, during the study so we can follow you over time. But we will keep all your information and data confidential and secure, and we will properly destroy them after completion of the study according to proper procedures. None of your identifying information will be published or shared with anybody outside of the research team.
The risks of taking part in this study are you may react negatively to being randomly assigned to a service or you may experience stress from completing the surveys. There is also risk of losing your privacy since we will collect personal information, but we will follow procedures to make sure your information and data are stored privately and we will remove identifiers as early as possible to reduce this risk. If you choose to participate in this study you will benefit by learning about housing resources.
We appreciate you taking part in the study and will compensate a $25 gift card for completing the first survey, $15 gift cards for completing 4 surveys over 12 months, and a $20 gift card for the last survey at the one-year mark. We will also provide the opportunity to complete three evaluation surveys for $5 per survey asking about your experience and satisfaction with services. For completing all surveys, you will earn $120. You may also be invited to participate in an individual interview for an additional $35.
Participation is voluntary and you may skip any questions you do not wish to answer. You can also stop participating at any time. Your decision to participate will have no impact on any of the services you receive at Harris Health Hospital or any hospital or community provider.
If you have any complaints, suggestions, or questions about your rights as a research volunteer, you may contact the UTHealth Houston Committee for the Protections of Human Subjects (CPHS) at 713-500-7943. If you have any questions regarding the study, you may contact the Dr. Jack Tsai at (212) 276-9022.