A comprehensive women’s health and HIV/AIDS prevention program was implemented at an alternative women’s jail program in Chicago and at post-release substance abuse treatment programs. The sample of 223 women served through the program have shown to exhibit many high-risk behaviors including substance use, trading sex for drugs, having unprotected sex without the consistent use of latex barriers and have been shown to be HIV positive more often than other women. The majority of these women have been in the jail system multiple times and therefore lack adequate skills to access community services to meet their health care needs. With the multitude of problems these women face, including lack of adequate food and shelter and social support, developing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle becomes difficult and contributes to higher incidence of disease and illness.
This paper will present a series of descriptive measures (including consistent condom use, frequency of use of prevention/early detection services, etc) used to evaluate the general health needs of incarcerated women served through the program. In addition, a summary of the various health needs present at post-release will be discussed. These findings will depict the impact of the program on the women's health attitudes, behaviors, and their likelihood to access health care and other community resources. Finally barriers to community services and other support networks anticipated by the women will be discussed to give a better understanding of this population's health behaviors.
Learning Objectives: 1. To recognize the general health care needs of incarcerated women. 2. To identify barriers that exist within this population that hinder their ability to lead healthy lifestyles. 3. To evaluate the likelihood of this population to seek care and support for their health care needs.
Keywords: Women's Health, Correctional Health Care
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.