The study analyzes the high incarceration rates in the U.S. as an epidemic connected to the lack of public health resources available to populations being arrested.
The study is in the Annual Review of Public Health. This is just one journal out of many Annual Reviews; the studies/ topics published are solely related to public health, such as epidemiology, biostatistics, and health services. Health professionals use the Annual Review to look at major articles in Public Health, for research, and for teaching.
The study specifically addresses low-income, minority populations, who are suffering the most from the U.S.'s incarceration "epidemic".
The study looks at the physical and mental health profiles of prisoners, and incarceration as both a health risk and health opportunity. This seems like a new way of studying the issue, as I've heard of studies only looking at the race of prisoners in the U.S.
With this data, health care professionals can expect that former inmates would be more likely to have certain diseases (tuberculosis, HIV, hepatitis C) and mental illness (drug dependence/ abuse, PTSD, anxiety), and likely didn't get treated while in prison.
The object focused in this epidemiological study is the incarcerated group. Whereas the study has focused on the reason why certain group of people incarcerated and therefore increase the amount of drug uses and decrease the health quality. The formation of the incarcerated community has spotted on analyzing few areas that include human races, relevant family incomes and the facilities with health care in both prisons and jails.
The final edited version has published via Annual Reviews of Public Health.
“The Annual Review of Public Health, in publication since 1980, covers significant developments in the field of Public Health, including key developments in epidemiology and biostatistics, environmental and occupational health, issues related to social environment and behavior, health services, and public health practice.” [http://www.annualreviews.org/journal/publhealth]
The journal can help the health professionals by exploring not only contents in the sub-sections of Public Health but further more explore other detailed topics with other journal sections such as Medicine, Nutrition etc.
“The mission of Annual Reviews is to provide systematic, periodic examinations of scholarly advances in a number of fields of science through critical authoritative reviews. The comprehensive critical review not only summarizes a topic but also roots out errors of fact or concept and provokes discussion that will lead to new research activity. The critical review is an essential part of the scientific method.” [http://www.annualreviews.org/page/about/our-mission-and-our-founder]
The main method has used in this study by review the health profiles of the incarcerated group. Via this method, the basic background information can be gather and analyze with categorized people into different groups such age, races, gender etc. Furthermore, with group analyze some conclusion can be made to execute a possible solution to decrease the incarcerated people in order to improve health conditions. The health records are also useful to make prediction trend of the future environment, even though the conclusion from the prediction is the situation would not change as much as general publics and authorities expected.
By reviewing health profiles of the incarcerated group to study this issue, personally would say it is quite a quick and reliable way but not quite sure on the innovation level of this kind of methodology. Another issue with method is the possibility on the violation of personal information and ethical controversy.
This study has let the news agencies to have a new term to report with the articles that relevant to public health and mass imprisonment when introducing contents to the general publics. The data and observations been made within the epidemiological study has assisted the new articles to explain the incarcerated group in a more colloquial and easy understanding way.
“When public health authorities talk about an epidemic, they are referring to a disease that can spread rapidly throughout a population, like the flu or tuberculosis.
But researchers are increasingly finding the term useful in understanding another destructive, and distinctly American, phenomenon — mass incarceration.” [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/opinion/mass-imprisonment-and-public-…]
“Since the 1970s, the correctional population in the US has ballooned by 700 percent. This phenomenon is often referred to as mass incarceration.” [http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/public_health/Mass-Incarceration-A-P…]
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