African American Female Drug Users: HIV, Health Disparities, & Criminality

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的总体目标是了解不同刑事司法地位的非裔美国吸毒和非吸毒妇女中吸毒和犯罪与健康差距，特别是艾滋病毒和服务利用之间的关系。尽管美国各种族群体的吸毒情况相似，但非裔美国人因滥用药物而遭受严重健康后果和犯罪的可能性更大。非裔美国女性罪犯可能无法获得适当的医疗保健，因为她们承受着种族、阶级、性别和刑事罪犯身份的负担。帮助了解非裔美国女性中艾滋病毒、未经治疗的药物滥用、服务利用障碍和刑事罪犯身份等健康差异之间的联系的科学数据有限。这项研究具有重要意义，因为它有可能确定非裔美国吸毒妇女和非吸毒妇女在特定刑事司法状况水平（集中惩教监督-监狱（n=200），中度惩教监督-监狱（n=200），社区监督-缓刑（n=200）和没有刑事司法参与（n=200））中的健康差异和服务利用差异。所有800名非裔美国女性将被纵向跟踪三个6个月的间隔，以检查健康状况和卫生服务的使用情况。具体目标是：(1)描述非裔美国妇女在刑事司法状况和药物使用状况中健康问题的普遍程度；(2)确定作为非裔美国吸毒妇女和非吸毒妇女18个月以上刑事司法状况健康问题预测因素的文化、易感因素、历史健康状况和潜在促成因素；(3)描述非洲裔美国妇女在刑事司法状况和药物使用状况中未得到治疗的健康问题的普遍程度、利用保健服务的模式以及利用服务的文化障碍；(4)研究预测非裔美国吸毒妇女和非吸毒妇女在18个月内刑事司法状况下使用卫生服务可能性的因素。这项研究的意义包括为非裔美国女性吸毒者的预防、干预和治疗的卫生规划和卫生政策提供刑事司法系统级数据的潜力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall goal of this study is to understand how drug use and criminality are related to health disparities, particularly HIV, and service utilization among African American drug using and non-drug using women across criminal justice status. While drug use is similar across racial groups in the US, African Americans are disproportionately more likely to experience severe health consequences and criminal involvement as a result of drug misuse. Adequate health care may not be received by African American female offenders because they experience the burden of their race, class, gender, and criminal offender status. There is limited scientific data to help understand the linkages between health disparities such as HIV, untreated drug abuse, barriers to service utilization, and status as a criminal offender among African American females. This study is significant because of its potential to identify differences in health disparities and service utilization among African American drug using and non-drug using women in selected levels of criminal justice status (intensive correctional supervision-prison (n=200), moderate correctional supervision-jail (n=200), community supervision-probation (n=200), and no criminal justice involvement (n=200)). All 800 African American females will be followed longitudinally for three 6-month intervals to examine health status and the use of health services across time. The specific aims are: (1) To describe the prevalence of health problems among African American women across criminal justice status and drug use status; (2) To determine the cultural, predisposing, historical health, and potential enabling factors that are predictors of health problems among African American drug using and non-drug using women across criminal justice status over 18 months; (3) To describe the prevalence of untreated health problems, the patterns of health services utilization, and the cultural barriers to service utilization among African American women across criminal justice status and drug use status; and (4) To examine the factors that predict the likelihood of using health services among African American drug using and non-drug using women across criminal justice status over 18 months. The significance of this study includes the potential to provide criminal justice systems-level data for health planning and health policy for prevention, intervention, and treatment of African American female drug users. This study is significant to the public health field because of its potential to understand the severity of health disparities among African American women across criminal justice status and drug use status and to predict health status and the use of health services over time. This knowledge of African American females can be used as a foundation for future criminal justice systems-level interventions to increase the use of preventative health care and subsequently reduce the need for expensive medical services, as well as to decrease HIV risk behaviors including drug use, unprotected sex, and recidivism.