Category: study guides

Drawing bright lines in law and regulation between what is criminal, what is harmful and what is desirable is difficult. Part of the difficulty here is the way that the benefits of a particular activity or industry are often intertwined with harm. The embedded nature of harm within benefit and the unequal distribution of those…

The criminal justice system removes individuals away from the community, friends, family, and intimate partners. Once sexual or injection drug partners are separated, new partners may be introduced into the relationship; partners left in the community may engage in sexual intercourse and injection drug use with new partners. When the number of sexual or drug…

Previous studies have demonstrated that recently released inmates have an increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease and current and former inmates are likely to have increased rates of cardiovascular risk factors. However, the reasons for this are unclear, making interventions that improve this population’s health difficult to design. As the correctional population continues to…

Incarceration may augment socioeconomic disadvantage, which is independently associated with the development of cardiovascular disease. Individuals released from prison and jail often face additional barriers to obtaining employment, housing, and public entitlements and encounter various restrictions of their political rights (Travis 2005), which may further impede access to healthcare and medical treatment. Current and former…

Higher rates of alcohol abuse and illicit drug use in patients with a history of incarceration are well documented and could contribute to increased cardiovascular risk. Injection drug use is associated with contracting HIV and hepatitis C, both of which are independently associated with developing cardiovascular disease. Whether substance abuse and its medical comorbidities contribute…

In US studies, current and former inmates have higher rates of hypertension (Wang et al. 2009), smoking (Cropsey et al. 2008), and left ventricular hypertrophy (Wang et al. 2009) than the general population. Analyses comparing diabetes in patients with and without a history of incarceration have yielded conflicting results (Leddy et al. 2009). Other studies…

Introduction Long-term care comprises a set of nonmedical as well as medical services delivered to individuals who have lost some capacity for self-care because of chronic illness or disability. It differs from other types of health care in that its primary goal is not to cure ill health but to allow individuals to achieve and…