Background: The Government of Cambodia has committed to supporting family care for vulnerable children, including homeless populations. Collecting baseline data on the numbers and characteristics of homeless adolescents was prioritized to illuminate the scope of the issue, mobilize resources and direct the response. Methods: Administrative zones across seven cities were purposively selected to cover the main urban areas known to have homeless populations in Cambodia. A complete enumeration of homeless individuals between the ages of 13 and 17 was attempted in the selected areas. In addition, a second independent count was conducted to enable a statistical estimation of completeness based on overlap across counts. This technique is known as capture-recapture. Adolescents were also interviewed about their schooling, health and other circumstances. Results: After adjustment by the capture-recapture corrective multipliers (range: 3.53 -27.08), the study yielded an estimate of 2,697 13-17 year old homeless adolescents across all seven cities. The total number of homeless boys counted was significantly greater than homeless girls, especially in older ages. Conclusions: To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time capture-recapture methods have been applied to a homeless estimation of this scale in a resource-limited setting. Findings suggest the number of homeless adolescents in Cambodia is much greater than one would expect if relying on single count data alone and that this population faces many hardships.
For example, the government of Cambodia REF has taken an initiative of counting homeless adolescent aged between 13 to 17 across seven cities of the country using manual counting and forecasting.
Estimating the size of the homeless adolescent population across seven cities in Cambodia
BMC Medical Research Methodology
BMC Medical Research Methodology
Medicine