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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Sofia Kennedy, MPH, Abt Associates, Inc, 55 Wheeler Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, 617-349-2797, sofia_kennedy@abtassoc.com, Mark rubens, AIDS Program Office, Jacksonville Department of (Public) Health, 55 wheeler street, Jacksonville, FL 32218, Otha Lee, UIC HIV/AIDS Project, 808 S. Wood Street, Room 872, chicago, IL 60612, and Joe moore, South Shore AIDS Project, 36 Cordage Park Circle, Suite 104, Plymouth, MA 02360.
The rate of HIV/AIDS among jail and prison inmates is more than five times that of the total US population . In 1999, the CDC and HRSA jointly funded one city and six state public health departments to expand HIV services to inmates and the grantees developed programs, including continuity of care services for inmates at 17 jails. Through these programs, jail-based staff help clients identify post-release needs (1317 clients have been served) and community-based staff help them connect to health and social services after release (613 releasees have been served).
The jail population is plagued by recidivism rates, much of it associated with long-term addiction, so clients often cannot stay out of jail for long enough to stabilize. Collaboration between community based organizations (CBOs) and jails is key to providing the intensive “hand holding” that these clients need. These model programs offer strategies to directly and indirectly address recidivism, the two most important are that programs continue working with clients who recidivate and staff try to meet clients at the gate at release—two jails even wait to release clients during business hours. Additional approaches include partnering with housing and drug treatment providers; collaborating with criminal justice organizations (e.g., probation, DA) in an effort to link program and legal outcomes; and communication between jail and community staff about the clients.
Much of the corrections literature relates to the, quite different, prison population, so models for jail services are needed.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Correctional Health Care, HIV Interventions
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
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.