Exploring the potential role of financial interventions to improve the health of families impacted by incarceration.

Purpose Of Review: To summarize the impact of financial hardship on children whose parents have been incarcerated, describe both existing cash transfer and guaranteed income programs, and highlight their impact on child and family well being.

Recent Findings: Emerging data on guaranteed income programs for formerly incarcerated adults indicates that the funds improve recipient health and legal system outcomes and allow participants to spend funds on stabilizing themselves and their families. Guaranteed income programs in the broader population similarly highlight the use of funds to support families' basic needs and improved parent-child relationships, but more data are needed to understand the impact on child health and well being among families impacted by the criminal legal system.

Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factor Control Following Release From Carceral Facilities: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: Incarceration is a social determinant of cardiovascular health but is rarely addressed in clinical settings or public health prevention efforts. People who have been incarcerated are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease (CVD) at younger ages and have worse cardiovascular outcomes compared with the general population, even after controlling for traditional risk factors. This study aims to identify incarceration-specific factors that are associated with uncontrolled CVD risk factors to identify potential targets for prevention.

Identifying incarceration status in the electronic health record using large language models in emergency department settings.

Background: Incarceration is a significant social determinant of health, contributing to high morbidity, mortality, and racialized health inequities. However, incarceration status is largely invisible to health services research due to inadequate clinical electronic health record (EHR) capture. This study aims to develop, train, and validate natural language processing (NLP) techniques to more effectively identify incarceration status in the EHR.

"It's just us sitting there for 23 hours like we done something wrong": Isolation, incarceration, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the millions of people incarcerated in United States' prisons and jails during the COVID-19 pandemic, isolation took many forms, including medical isolation for those sick with COVID-19, quarantine for those potentially exposed, and prolonged facility-wide lockdowns. Incarcerated people's lived experience of isolation during the pandemic has largely gone undocumented. Through interviews with 48 incarcerated people and 27 staff at two jails and one prison in geographically diverse locations in the United States, we document the implementation of COVID-19 isolation policies from the perspective of those that live and work in carceral settings.

"What if that's your last sleep?" A qualitative exploration of the trauma of incarceration and sleep.

Study Background/objectives: Sleep is an underexplored factor in the health of people involved in the criminal legal system. This study addresses the paucity of research on how individual, social, and physical environmental factors impact sleep health during and after incarceration by highlighting the voices of people involved in the criminal legal system through a community-engaged qualitative research approach.

Methods: We conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with men recently released from prison for a study on trauma and healthcare during incarceration and after release.

Predicting COVID-19 Outbreaks in Correctional Facilities Using Machine Learning.

Unlabelled: The risk of infectious disease transmission, including COVID-19, is disproportionately high in correctional facilities due to close living conditions, relatively low levels of vaccination, and reduced access to testing and treatment. While much progress has been made on describing and mitigating COVID-19 and other infectious disease risk in jails and prisons, there are open questions about which data can best predict future outbreaks. We used facility data and demographic and health data collected from 24 prison facilities in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections from March 2020 to May 2021 to determine which sources of data best predict a coming COVID-19 outbreak in a prison facility.

Incarceration and screen-detectable cancer diagnosis among adults in Connecticut.

Although incarcerated adults are at elevated risk of dying from cancer, little is known about cancer screening in carceral settings. This study compared stage-specific incidence of screen-detectable cancers among incarcerated and recently released people with the general population, as a reflection of screening practices. We calculated the age- and sex-standardized incidence ratios (SIR) for early- and late-stage cancers for incarcerated and recently released adults compared to the general Connecticut population between 2005 and 2016.

The sleep justice study - a prospective cohort study assessing sleep as a cardiometabolic risk factor after incarceration: a protocol paper.

Background: An estimated 11 million individuals are released from U.S. jails and prisons each year.

Exploring Parental Incarceration, US Government Support Programs, and Child Health and Well-Being: A National Cross-Sectional Study.

Objectives: To describe relationships between parental incarceration and child health and flourishing-a measure of curiosity, resilience, and self-regulation-and to identify government programs that moderate this relationship.

Methods: Using the National Survey of Children's Health data from 2016 through 2019 for children 6-17 years old, we estimated associations with logistic regression between parental incarceration and overall health and flourishing, adjusting for child, caregiver, and household factors. We secondarily examined physical health (asthma, headaches), mental health (attention deficit disorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression), developmental needs (learning disability, special educational plan use), and educational (missing ≥11 school days, repeated grade) outcomes.

Factors Associated With Visual Impairment Among Adults With a History of Criminal Justice Involvement.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of and factors associated with visual impairment among adults with a history of criminal justice involvement (CJI). This retrospective, cross-sectional study reviewed adult respondents from the 2015-2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. We analyzed sociodemographic and health characteristics to determine factors associated with visual impairment among adults with and without a history of CJI.

Trusted residents and housing assistance to decrease violence exposure in New Haven (TRUE HAVEN): a strengths-based and community-driven stepped-wedge intervention to reduce gun violence.

Background: We describe the rationale and study design for "TRUsted rEsidents and Housing Assistance to decrease Violence Exposure in New Haven (TRUE HAVEN)," a prospective type 1 hybrid effectiveness/implementation study of a multi-level intervention using a stepped wedge design. TRUE HAVEN aims to lower rates of community gun violence by fostering the stability, wealth, and well-being of individuals and families directly impacted by incarceration through the provision of stable housing and by breaking the cycle of trauma.

Design: TRUE HAVEN is an ongoing, multi-level intervention with three primary components: financial education paired with housing support (individual level), trauma-informed counseling (neighborhood level), and policy changes to address structural racism (city/state level).

"We know what's going on in our community": A qualitative analysis identifying community assets that deter gun violence.

Communities of color are disproportionately impacted by gun violence. Unlocking potential community-led solutions could be the key to quelling the gun violence epidemic and its impact on these communities. In this qualitative study, we explored community perspectives on local assets that may prevent and mitigate gun violence.

Cancer incidence among incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals: A statewide retrospective cohort study.

Background: Cancer incidence among individuals with incarceration exposure has been rarely studied due to the absence of linked datasets. This study examined cancer incidence during incarceration and postincarceration compared to the general population using a statewide linked cohort.

Methods: We constructed a retrospective cohort from a linkage of state tumor registry and correctional system data for Connecticut residents from 2005 to 2016, and identified cancers diagnosed during and within 12 months postincarceration.

TRUsted rEsidents and Housing Assistance to decrease Violence Exposure in New Haven (TRUE HAVEN): A strengths-based and community-driven stepped-wedge intervention to reduce gun violence.

We describe the rationale and study design for " sted Esidents and ousing ssistance to decrease iolence xposure in ew Haven (TRUE HAVEN)," a prospective type 1 hybrid effectiveness/implementation study of a multi-level intervention using a stepped wedge design. TRUE HAVEN aims to lower rates of community gun violence by fostering the stability, wealth, and well-being of individuals and families directly impacted by incarceration through the provision of stable housing and by breaking the cycle of trauma. TRUE HAVEN is a multi-level intervention with three primary components: financial education paired with housing support (individual level), trauma-informed counseling (neighborhood level), and policy changes to address structural racism (city/state level).

Personal Health Libraries for People Returning From Incarceration: Protocol for a Qualitative Study.

Background: Individuals released from carceral facilities have high rates of hospitalization and death, especially in the weeks immediately after their return to community settings. During this transitional process, individuals leaving incarceration are expected to engage with multiple providers working in separate, complex systems, including health care clinics, social service agencies, community-based organizations, and probation and parole services. This navigation is often complicated by individuals' physical and mental health, literacy and fluency, and socioeconomic status.

COVID-19 vaccine deliberation in individuals directly impacted by incarceration.

Delays in vaccinating communities of color to COVID-19 have signaled a need to investigate structural barriers to vaccine uptake, with mass incarceration demanding greater characterization as a potential factor. In a nationally representative survey from February-March 2021 (N = 1,157), exposure to the criminal legal system, defined as having been incarcerated in prison or jail or having had a family member or close friend incarcerated, was associated with higher odds for COVID-19 vaccine deliberation. Individuals with criminal legal system exposure reported lower confidence in physician recommendation as a reason to get vaccinated.

COVID-19 amplified racial disparities in the US criminal legal system.

The criminal legal system in the USA drives an incarceration rate that is the highest on the planet, with disparities by class and race among its signature features. During the first year of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the number of incarcerated people in the USA decreased by at least 17%-the largest, fastest reduction in prison population in American history. Here we ask how this reduction influenced the racial composition of US prisons and consider possible mechanisms for these dynamics.

Health Insurance and Mental Health Treatment Use Among Adults With Criminal Legal Involvement After Medicaid Expansion.

Objective: Individuals with criminal legal involvement have high rates of substance use and other mental disorders. Before implementation of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion, they also had low health insurance coverage. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of Medicaid expansion on health insurance coverage and use of treatment for substance use or other mental disorders in this population.

Neighborhood Incarceration Rates and Adverse Birth Outcomes in New York City, 2010-2014.

Importance: The US has high rates of adverse birth outcomes, with substantial racial disparities augmented by stress and neighborhood disadvantage. Black people are more likely to live in neighborhoods with high rates of incarceration, which is a source of both stress and neighborhood disadvantage and, thus, may contribute to adverse birth outcomes.

Objective: To determine whether neighborhoods with high incarceration rates also have higher rates of adverse birth outcomes compared with neighborhoods with lower rates.

Characteristics of recently incarcerated primary care patients with and without a positive posttraumatic stress disorder screening upon clinic intake.

Objective: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is prevalent among people who have been incarcerated. Here, we examined whether screening positive for PTSD was associated with other indicators of poor health, acute healthcare utilization, and poverty among primary care patients upon release from incarceration.

Method: We conducted a cross-sectional survey in a national network of primary care clinics serving people recently released from incarceration.

Treating Hepatitis C in Individuals With Previous Incarceration: The Veterans Health Administration, 2012-2019.

To determine whether the Veterans Health Administration's (VHA) hepatitis C (HCV) treatment campaign reached marginalized populations, we compared HCV care by previous incarceration status with Veterans Aging Cohort Study data. Of those with and those without previous incarceration, respectively, 40% and 21% had detectable HCV, 59% and 65% underwent treatment ( = .07); 92% and 94% of those who completed treatment achieved sustained virologic response.