Linking formerly incarcerated men to health care: A capacity building intervention at a prisoner re-entry program in East Harlem

Research documents that men's needs for sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care are not adequately met in the U.S. Formerly incarcerated men represent a particularly high need group. While their risk for poor health outcomes is high they remain disconnected from key institutional sectors including the health care system. Negative health care experiences in prison may heighten their reluctance to seek care. This paper describes the design, implementation and evaluation of a capacity-building intervention to promote men's SRH at Exodus Transitional Community (ETC), a prisoner re-entry program in East Harlem. The intervention was designed to connect men at ETC to a health care home and build sustainable relationships between key staff at referral clinics and ETC through staff training and embedding sexual health care information, promotion messages and referrals into the organization's physical and virtual environments as well as its program content. The evaluation employs a pretest/post-test intervention group-only design. Self-administered pretest questionnaires will be conducted before participants have been exposed to the program beginning in early March of 2010, and telephone post-test interviews will occur three months later. This research will assess effectiveness and feasibility of building the capacity of an employment and social-service based prisoner re-entry program to connect male clients to health care services with a particular focus on SRH. Study findings will be able to directly influence the development of future health interventions aimed at this population.