Comparing Incarcerated and Community-Dwelling Older Men's Health

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to compare incarcerated and community-dwelling older men's self-efficacy for health management, health-promotion behaviors, and health status. Social cognitive theory was the guiding framework. A sample of 51 incarcerated and 33 community men (age 50 and older) were surveyed. Frequencies and independent samples t tests were computed. Inmates reported significantly less participation in health-promotion behaviors (p < .01) and attended fewer programs (p < .05). The two groups did not demonstrate significant differences in self-efficacy or health status. The latter finding is important because the community men were on average 15 years older. Finding that prisoners attended significantly fewer programs and engaged less often in health-promoting behaviors may be because of lack of availability or awareness of programs to build self-care skills, perceptions that there is not much they can do about their health, a knowledge deficit in regard to health, or insufficient motivation.

Ageing Prisoners' Disease Burden: Is Being Old a Better Predictor than Time Served in Prison?

“…These records belonged to 203 older prisoners (>50 years) and 203 younger prisoners (≤49 years). Older prisoners were defined as those 50 years and older in accordance with available literature [5,7,8]. Research ethics commission (REC) approval was sought and obtained from 10 regional RECs in Switzerland, where the relevant prisons are located.…”

“…An increasing and ageing population of prisoners is evident in many countries, and the most prominent changes are seen among the prisons in the USA [2] and the UK [4]. Due to accelerated ageing, older prisoners are defined as those who are aged 50 years and over [5,6], rather than 65 years and older in the community; because a 50-year-old prisoner tends to represent the health burden of someone who is 10-15 years older in the community [7,8]. …”

Bridging community and prison for older adults: invoking human rights and elder and intergenerational family justice

“…Palliative care and information and counseling about end-of-life options are needed in prison, especially since many older adults in prison are chronically ill, including with dementia, and a sizable number (e.g. 5,000 in the USA) die each year while in prison (Loeb et al, 2008;Maschi et al, 2012c;Williams and Abraldes, 2007).…”

Health Disparities and the Criminal Justice System: An Agenda for Further Research and Action

“…Studies comparing inmates and the general population have been challenged by a lack of comparable data across populations and by the lack of detailed data to adequately account for potential confounders. 7,31,54 The systematic exclusion of inmates from large epidemiological studies could lead to under-estimation of the prevalence of conditions such as HIV found more commonly in African-American and Latino men, who are underrepresented in health research 55,56 but over-represented in the criminal justice system. Thus, the exclusion of inmates from broader health research may decrease the accuracy of population health statistics and measurement of population health disparities, as described in work by Edlin and Carden for hepatitis C. 57 Most literature documenting the existence of racial and ethnic health disparities has been derived from non-institutionalized participants and has not measured whether participants have had criminal justice exposure.…”