title: Self-perceived health improvements among prison inmates.
abstract: Despite the extensive resources expended on providing medical care to inmates, inmates' health perception is an understudied topic. The current study investigates inmates' perception of health status while incarcerated using a sample of 136 soon-to-be released prisoners. Prisoners with poor health perception prior to their current incarceration were most likely to perceive health improvement. Sociodemographic characteristics were generally not associated with the perceived health improvement during incarceration. Analysis results suggest correctional institutions may play a vital role in delivering much-needed medical care to a segment of the prisoner population, including determining how they feel about their health. It is important to explore the policies and practices to increase continuity of health care following release to maintain perceived health improvement.
authors.affiliation: Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA syu@jjay.cuny.edu.
authors.forename: Sung-suk Violet
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Hung-En
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Sung
authors.affiliation: Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Jeff
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mellow
authors.affiliation: New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, Albany, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Carl J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Koenigsmann
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010465:Perception; D011329:Prisoners; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors
keywords: health improvement; health perception; health policy; prisoner