Street-involved (SI) youth are among the groups most vulnerable to poor health outcomes in adolescence. Many SI youth turn to the street for a range of reasons, including neglect and abuse, or they may have been forced to leave home by their parents or caregivers. Along with an exit from home, access to traditional healthcare such as a family doctor is often compromised, resulting in SI youth necessarily accessing emergency department (ED) services for both emergency and primary care. As part of a larger examination of ED systems of care relative to SI youth, this paper reports on a community-based participatory action research project that examined ED access by and experiences of SI youth.
