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215332 Limiting women prisoners' healthcare access: Implications for the management of communicable disease and healthcare justiceWednesday, November 10, 2010
: 8:30 AM - 8:50 AM
Background: One in 100 individuals in the US is in jail or prison, and women represent the fastest growing segment of this population. Women prisoners are at higher risk than men for a number of serious health problems including HIV, other bloodborne diseases, and STIs. This paper presents the findings from a study of healthcare access among formerly incarcerated women and analyzes how barriers to healthcare impact prevention and treatment of communicable disease. Method: This community-based participatory research project included 31 formerly incarcerated women. Focus group data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using grounded theory. Participants' mean age was 38 years. Fourteen were White, 8 Hispanic, 6 African American, and 3 other. Their mean level of education was 12 years. They reported an average of 6 incarcerations in jail and 1 in prison. Results: Participants in this study described circumstances that hindered their healthcare access while in jail and prison. Specifically, they reported how co-payments, fees paid by prisoners for healthcare, presented barriers. Their accounts illustrate how communicable disease often went untreated, and how they found limited access to care on community reentry. Conclusions: Restricted healthcare access and untreated communicable disease violate prisoners' human rights and compromise safety for other prisoners, staff, and the larger community. These findings have implications for public health nursing practice in the community settings to which over 600,000 prisoners return each year, and raise questions of health justice for public health nurses working with this vulnerable population.
Learning Areas:
Ethics, professional and legal requirementsProtection of the public in relation to communicable diseases including prevention or control Public health or related nursing Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines Public health or related research Learning Objectives: Keywords: Jails and Prisons, Communicable Disease
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have completed the research upon which this paper is based. I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.
Back to: 5082.0: Social Justice and Ethics
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