Confined to Ignorance: The Absence of Prisoner Information from Nationally Representative Health Data Sets
Confined to Ignorance: The Absence of Prisoner Information from Nationally Representative Health Data Sets
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DOI：
10.1007/s11606-011-1858-7
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发表时间：
2012-02-01
影响因子：
5.7
通讯作者：
Williams, Brie A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ahalt, Cyrus;Binswanger, Ingrid A.;Williams, Brie A.
监禁与健康状况不佳和高昂费用有关。鉴于刑事司法系统人口和相关费用的急剧增长，将与监禁相关的问题纳入国家健康数据集中可以为研究人员、临床医生和政策制定者提供重要数据。评估公开的国家健康数据集的代表性样本，了解其用于研究当前或以前被监禁者的健康状况的能力，并确定改善健康数据集中刑事司法问题的机会。我们审查了普通内科医学会数据集纲要中与个人健康相关的 36 个数据集。通过使用与监禁相关的关键词进行内容分析，我们确定了可用于研究当前或以前被监禁者的数据集，并确定了提高相关数据可用性的机会。虽然 12 个 (33%) 数据集返回了关键词匹配，但没有一个数据集可用于研究被监禁者。其中三个（8%）可用于研究以前被监禁者的健康状况，但只有一组数据包含多个问题，例如监禁时间和监禁年龄。错失的机会包括：（1）数据集包含当前囚犯但未记录其状态（10，28%）； (2) 询问与监禁相关的问题但没有具体记录受试者之前被监禁状态的数据集 (8, 22%)； (3) 纵向研究放弃和/或未能记录研究期间被监禁的人（8, 22%）。很少有健康数据集可用于评估监禁与健康之间的关联。对现有国家健康数据集的三种类型的更改可以大大扩展可用数据，包括： 记录被监禁的研究参与者的监禁状态；当数据已被收集时，记录受试者的监禁历史；并在已经记录监禁历史的研究中扩大与监禁相关的问题。
Incarceration is associated with poor health and high costs. Given the dramatic growth in the criminal justice system's population and associated expenses, inclusion of questions related to incarceration in national health data sets could provide essential data to researchers, clinicians and policy-makers.To evaluate a representative sample of publically available national health data sets for their ability to be used to study the health of currently or formerly incarcerated persons and to identify opportunities to improve criminal justice questions in health data sets.We reviewed the 36 data sets from the Society of General Internal Medicine Dataset Compendium related to individual health. Through content analysis using incarceration-related keywords, we identified data sets that could be used to study currently or formerly incarcerated persons, and we identified opportunities to improve the availability of relevant data.While 12 (33%) data sets returned keyword matches, none could be used to study incarcerated persons. Three (8%) could be used to study the health of formerly incarcerated individuals, but only one data set included multiple questions such as length of incarceration and age at incarceration. Missed opportunities included: (1) data sets that included current prisoners but did not record their status (10, 28%); (2) data sets that asked questions related to incarceration but did not specifically record a subject's status as formerly incarcerated (8, 22%); and (3) longitudinal studies that dropped and/or failed to record persons who became incarcerated during the study (8, 22%).Few health data sets can be used to evaluate the association between incarceration and health. Three types of changes to existing national health data sets could substantially expand the available data, including: recording incarceration status for study participants who are incarcerated; recording subjects' history of incarceration when this data is already being collected; and expanding incarceration-related questions in studies that already record incarceration history.