Emily D Grussing, Taisuke Sato, Alyssa Cabrera, Alysse G Wurcel
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Eliminating infectious diseases epidemics requires resources for testing, prevention, and treatment in jails. The 2022 Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention guidelines recommend offering hepatitis C virus (HCV), HIV, and STI testing at jail intake. Currently, the impact of offering testing at intake in jails has only been analyzed in the context of multi-modal strategies to increase testing. There is a lack of real-world data about the impact of offering testing at jail intake as a strategy to increase testing. In May 2022, Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Massachusetts added questions to their intake form offering HIV, HCV, syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia testing. The goal of this project was to assess frequency of testing before and after the addition of infectious diseases testing questions to the intake form.
Case presentation: Data about infectious diseases testing completion per month were compared between February-April 2022 and May 2022-June 2023. The transition from rapid to venipuncture HIV testing was also compared between September 2021-June 2023. Data was assessed in monthly intervals. The median number of urine tests decreased from 39 to 28, and the median number of blood tests decreased from 21 to 15 after testing was offered during intake.
Conclusion: There were no significant trends in the run chart after the intervention. Although offering testing at intake is one important part of healthcare in jails, intake testing should be supported with other systems including access to phlebotomy, facilitated movement from the housing areas to the medical unit, and stigma reduction tools.
期刊介绍:
Health & Justice is open to submissions from public health, criminology and criminal justice, medical science, psychology and clinical sciences, sociology, neuroscience, biology, anthropology and the social sciences, and covers a broad array of research types. It publishes original research, research notes (promising issues that are smaller in scope), commentaries, and translational notes (possible ways of introducing innovations in the justice system). Health & Justice aims to: Present original experimental research on the area of health and well-being of people involved in the adult or juvenile justice system, including people who work in the system; Present meta-analysis or systematic reviews in the area of health and justice for those involved in the justice system; Provide an arena to present new and upcoming scientific issues; Present translational science—the movement of scientific findings into practice including programs, procedures, or strategies; Present implementation science findings to advance the uptake and use of evidence-based practices; and, Present protocols and clinical practice guidelines. As an open access journal, Health & Justice aims for a broad reach, including researchers across many disciplines as well as justice practitioners (e.g. judges, prosecutors, defenders, probation officers, treatment providers, mental health and medical personnel working with justice-involved individuals, etc.). The sections of the journal devoted to translational and implementation sciences are primarily geared to practitioners and justice actors with special attention to the techniques used.