This call for abstracts is open to NHCHC members and nonmembers. 

You do not need to be a member of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council to submit an abstract. However, if your abstract is accepted for presentation, the presenters MUST register for the conference by the registration deadline. Submission of an abstract implies a commitment to make the presentation at the annual meeting.

The Council recognizes and supports the critical role people with lived expertise of homelessness play in defining, measuring, and working together for health and belonging. We strongly encourage abstracts that meaningfully include consumers in the development of educational content and/or the delivery of the presentation. Council staff and members are available to assist consumers in developing proposals. For more information, please contact Community Engagement Director  Cindy Manginelli.  

The Council encourages agencies to support the travel costs of consumer presenters whose workshops are accepted. Consumer presenters are prioritized for a limited number of consumer subsidies, which cover registration, meals, lodging, and limited travel assistance.

• Carefully review conference tracks and session formats (see descriptions below)
• Include a clear title for your abstract
• Clearly indicate the purpose, methods, results, and implications of your work
• Indicate how your abstract can be instructional for replication in other programs
• Abstracts should be no more than 300 words
• Abstracts must be submitted online by Friday, Sept. 6 
• Presenters will be notified of acceptance by November 2024

Additional Guidance  

• Presentations with high audience engagement design will be prioritized.
• Please refrain from including identifying information in the abstract summary and description.
• You’ll be asked to provide an abstract description as well as a shorter 100-word abstract summary that the Council will use in the conference program and app. To reduce our need to edit your summary for inclusion in the program, please use third-person language and describe in just a few concise sentences what your session offers, with the most pertinent information at the top of the description.
• Here’s an example: The homelessness services system is experiencing increases in the number of people without housing who have recently entered the U.S. Rooted in human rights principles, this session will be an informal discussion of the operational challenges this change presents, as well as highlight strategies for delivering care and advocating for needed resources. Come to this discussion and help evaluate how the HCH community can adapt to a growing population with special needs. 

75-Minute Breakout Sessions 

A 75-minute breakout provides an in-depth exploration of a program innovation, emerging issue, clinical challenge, finding(s) from a research project, policy change(s), or a quality improvement initiative. Presentations may include slide presentations, group exercises, facilitated discussion, and clinical case studies. Creative formats outside of traditional lecture/Q&A patterns are welcomed. 

Presenter Max: Three 

Poster Presentations 

Posters offer a succinct view of programs and practices, policy issues, or research analysis, and can be submitted under any relevant topic area. Posters will be presented during the Welcome Reception during an official poster and networking reception. Presenters should be with the poster during this scheduled viewing and posters will remain available for viewing throughout the conference during breaks. Specific guidelines for printing the poster will be provided upon acceptance. 

Presenter Max: One 

Please submit your abstract in only one session format and track. 

Clinical Care 

An abstract submitted in the Clinical Care track should enhance the knowledge and skills of providers on the front lines to improve the health and quality of life of people experiencing homelessness. We encourage submissions by and for clinicians of any discipline. Sessions may reflect a discipline-specific focus for a topic deep dive or an interdisciplinary approach to confront the complex problems associated with homelessness and should explicitly address how care delivery is supporting health equity.  

Policy and Advocacy 

The Policy and Advocacy track is intended to highlight the efforts of the HCH community to create better public policy and achieve solutions to poverty and homelessness that are rooted in equity and justice. This track is distinct from the Program Operations and Innovation track in that it focuses on policy advocacy activities and partnerships external to direct-service organizations. 

Program Operations and Innovation 

The goal for sessions in this track is to enhance the knowledge and skills of decision-makers, supervisors, and administrators at health centers and other direct-service organizations. An abstract should feature promising practices in tailoring programs to meet the needs of people without homes through an equity lens within broader efforts to end homelessness and achieve justice. As opposed to the Direct Care track that pertains to skills in client interactions (i.e., “inside the exam room”), this track focuses on the decisions and structures supporting direct service (“in the conference room”). 

Evidence and Evaluation 

The purpose of the Evidence and Evaluation Track is to provide a venue for health services researchers, clinicians, quality improvement officers, or others in the community that serves unstably housed populations to: (1) Demonstrate research or quality improvement projects that are innovative, (2) Highlight emerging, promising, or evidence-based practices that impact overall population health, or policy efforts to improve the quality of care for individuals experiencing homelessness, and (3) Describe research that facilitates quality improvement initiatives at Health Care for the Homeless health centers to advance knowledge, support data, metrics, and improve the lives of patients served. Abstracts should highlight how research and/or quality improvement work is centered in health equity and justice. We are especially interested in projects that are led by, or informed by, patient and clinical stakeholders, and conducted in a clinic setting or settings where people experiencing homelessness live. 

Medical Respite Care 

The Medical Respite Care track is intended to highlight promising practices in the development, delivery, and evaluation of medical respite care services. An abstract should feature innovations in how communities and providers build their programs, support their staff, deliver clinical care, strengthen partnerships, evaluate impact, and/or create pathways for sustainable funding through the lens of equity and justice. As Medical Respite Care is cross-cutting, any abstract that fits in the Clinical Care, Policy and Advocacy, Program Operations & Innovation, and Evidence and Evaluation tracks would be appropriate for this track, as long as it is through the lens of Medical Respite Care.

NHCHC’s mission is grounded in social justice, and presentations at our annual conference are an important opportunity to center principles of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) in sharing our work. Here are some ways to demonstrate JEDI principles within a subject area:  

• Apply the use of multiple and diverse perspectives across various marginalized identities* as a catalyst for equitable change. 
• Illustrate an impact that supports a health equity outcome. 
• Demonstrate partnering with individuals with lived experience.  
• Demonstrate a self-reflection process to assess if your internal organizational practices are complicit or contributing to inequities. 
• Differentiate between use of data for self-serving organizational purposes vs:
  • patient/community empowerment and advocacy 
  • meaningful impact for the community served as defined by them
  • supporting patients/community served in achieving their definition of well-being or access to resources 
• Employ transparent data reporting practices to communities served.  
• Illustrate actions that address individual, institutional, structural, or systemic marginalization that contributes to an inequity for patients or staff.  

When curating your content, please utilize Dr. Caruso Brown's Checklist for Assessing Bias in Health Professions Education Content to help reveal, address and minimize where bias may be present in your work.   

*Identities include but are not limited to: race, ethnicity, and gender, but also age, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, language, and physical appearance. 

The educational content of this event is eligible for Continuing Medical Education Level 1 credits (ACCME), Continuing Nursing Credits (ANCC), Social Worker Continuing Education Credits (ASWB and NYSW - applicable with the exception of New Jersey) through Amedco. No demonstration or endorsement of commercial products is permissible in educational sessions.

Abstracts are reviewed blindly and scored by volunteers according to criteria established for each track. Presenter information, affiliations, and identifying information will not be shared with reviewers. Abstracts are reviewed based on the criteria below: 

1. Theme: The abstract should be reflective of the conference theme -- Building Communities. 
2. Experience: Abstracts that are prepared with the involvement of consumers and where consumers are co-presenters will be weighted more positively in the review process.
3. Relevance: The abstract should address significant, current issues related to health and social justice.
4. Evidence: For clarity, the abstract should clearly indicate whether practices to be discussed are evidence based, promising, or innovative.
5. Replicability:The abstract should describe practices and approaches that can be replicated in other HCH health centers, medical respite programs, supportive housing, or homeless service provider settings. 
6. Policy Impact:The abstract should identify and address a topic’s implications for public policy and agency policies. 
7. Inclusion:The abstract should identify components or processes that explain how participants with relevant lived experience were involved in the development, design, or presentation of this submission.  
8. Clarity: Overall, an abstract should be well structured, coherent, and easy to understand.
9. Format: The abstract should reflect the expectations of the submitted session format.

NHCHC reserves the right to recommend changes in the track or focus/content of a proposed educational session or may combine similar abstracts into one session. Submitters will be asked to indicate their willingness to combine abstracts upon submission. If abstracts are combined, submitters will be notified.

• If your proposal is accepted, registration discount codes will be provided.
• Breakouts: $200 Main Conference discount for up to THREE presenters
• The Council is not responsible for travel, hotel accommodations, and meals not provided at the conference. Breakfasts and lunches are included with registration.
• Speaker fees for submitted presentations are not available.