Measurement in Correctional Health Research: Unique Challenges and Strategies for Enhanced Rigor

Abstract

It is essential to identify valid and reliable measurement strategies to enhance accurate, comprehensive, and meaningful health assessment and evaluation to improve health outcomes among justice-involved and incarcerated populations. This article identifies and describes three primary challenges related to measurement in correctional health care and makes four recommendations for enhanced measurement rigor from a social justice perspective. First, incorporate incarcerated persons into the measurement research process; second, enhance psychometric investigation in correctional health settings; third, increase the collection of individual-level, health-related data from incarcerated populations; and fourth, create and maintain centralized databases and comprehensive codebooks to promote data sharing.

Depressive Symptoms among Pregnant and Postpartum Women in Prison

“…It should be noted that widely used measures of depressive symptoms were designed for and validated in samples of nonincarcerated individuals, so these measures may function differently in carceral settings. 46 The PHQ-9 demonstrated good internal consistency in our sample, but further research should assess additional psychometric properties of depression measures in pregnant and postpartum women in prison, as well as in other justice-involved populations. Research also should expand to include assessment of mental health symptoms beyond depressive symptoms in pregnant and postpartum women in prison, given that incarcerated populations are at heightened risk for a variety of mental health symptoms (both internalizing and externalizing) 6,9 and that psychopathology is dimensional and transdiagnostic.…”

“…We suggest that future research use consistent measures of depressive symptoms across studies so that findings are directly comparable. It should be noted that widely used measures of depressive symptoms were designed for and validated in samples of nonincarcerated individuals, so these measures may function differently in carceral settings 46 . The PHQ‐9 demonstrated good internal consistency in our sample, but further research should assess additional psychometric properties of depression measures in pregnant and postpartum women in prison, as well as in other justice‐involved populations.…”

Impacts of Incarceration on Health Focusing on Minority Males: Considerations for COVID-19 and Future Pandemics

“…Interestingly, recent national findings regarding incarceration statistics report that minority males both serve longer sentences and are more likely to be incarcerated when compared to white males (Carson, 2020). Therefore, we attribute this lack of prevalence among persons of color to the limited up-to-date national representative data collection on health conditions within correctional facilities (Harzke & Pruitt, 2018;Prost et al, 2019). This absence of current national data regarding inmates and health-related factors is concerning, given the growing health disparity among incarcerated minority males related to COVID-19 and may be a contributing factor to the lack of preparedness in combatting the transmission (Dumont et al, 2012;Harzke & Pruitt, 2018;Maruschak et al, 2015).…”

Quality of Life in Jail: Gender, Correlates, and Drivers in a Carceral Space

“…However, these paint only a limited psychometric portrait. Modifications of existing QOL measures may be important so as to capture the lived experience of this population which warrants consumer-driven approaches such as community-based participatory research, focus groups, cognitive interviewing, and constituent–expert panels (Prost, Kennedy et al, 2019).…”

“…Controversy exists regarding the use of gold-standard measures validated with general, non-incarcerated populations in correctional settings (see Prost, Kennedy et al, 2019, for review).…”