Fitzpatrick-Lewis et al. BMC Public Health 2011, 11:638 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/11/638 homeless populations. Case management has several positive effects including completion of courses of treat- ment and retention within community based treatment programs, reduced in-patient services, improved quality of life (including housing), and high client satisfaction. Case management appears to be most effective for homeless people when it is integrated, supportive, and well matched to clients. Findings from this review are in good agreement with those from the 2005 review by Hwang and colleagues [6]. Although new studies strong and moderate quality were limited, much of the new data in this review addresses gaps in the literature regarding the effectiveness of hous- ing provisions interventions on the health and access to healthcare for people who are homeless or marginally housed. In addition, the new data identifies that these interventions can also be effective for improving an indi- vidual’s housing status. Of significance is the new evi- dence for interventions that support people who have HIV and are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Not- withstanding, there remains a need for controlled studies in homeless persons with other infectious diseases, as well as studies examining sub-populations of homeless people that include women, families and children. Endnote 1 The * symbol indicates that the word has been trun- cated. Truncation allows for the searching of the first letters of words while not restricting the suffix. Additional material Additional file 1: Appendix A - Search Strategy. Additional file 2: Appendix B - Quality Assessment Results for Methodologically Weak Relevant Studies. Acknowledgements Partial funding for this paper was provided to the Effective Public Health Practice Project by the Region of Peel, Canada. In 2009 the Region of Peel commissioned the Effective Public Health Practice Project, McMaster University, Hamilton Ontario a review entitled “Interventions to increase access to health and health care, including housing, for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness: Expedited review”. (To access this review contact Joan Davison at joan.davison@peelregion.ca). This current review contains some overlap of retrieved articles and methodological ratings with those found for the Region of Peel review, however, the search was redone and the inclusion criteria were different for this update. Author details 1The Effective Public Health Practice Project, School of Nursing, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada. 2Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. 3St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, Canada. Authors’ contributions DFL conceived of the study, participated in the design of the study, title and abstract screening, full text screening, data extraction and analysis, and drafted the manuscript. RG participated in title and abstract screening, full text screening, and contributed to the manuscript drafts. SK carried out the Page 11 of 14 grey literature search, participated in title and abstract screening, full text screening, and contributed to the manuscript drafts. DC conceived of the study, participated in the design of the study, title and abstract screening, full text screening, and contributed to the manuscript drafts. FK contributed to the conception of the study, participated in the study design, and contributed to the manuscript drafts. SH was the lead author on the original review, contributed to the conception of the study, participated in the study design, and contributed to the manuscript drafts. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. 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