Overwhelming evidence shows that a range of health concerns—mental illness, substance dependence, HIV/AIDS, and noncommunicable diseases—affect prisoners disproportionately. But, while incarceration poses risks to health—including inadequate nutrition and exposure to violence—prisons also pr...esent important opportunities to promote health and risk reduction that need to be tapped.
Some recommended remedies:
Health ministries, not ministries of justice, should manage health care responsibilities
Ensure that testing is available, but not mandatory, for infectious diseases
Make prison health part of the broader public health agenda
more
Regional Initiative for the Elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV and Congenital Syphilis in Latin America and the Caribbean
Eur Respir J. 2014 April ; 43(4): 1132–1141. doi:10.1183/09031936.00203613.
ERJ Open Res 2017; 3: 00002-2017
Regional Eastern European and Central Asian project (TB-REP) Copenhagen, Denmark, 26–28 April 2016