From Dean Linda Fried’s Op-Ed in the Huffington Post
6/2/2014

Putting a Public Health Lens on Incarceration

The United States is facing an epidemic of incarceration — people in jail or prisons — demanding national attention and a systemic response. Ernest Drucker, my colleague and a professor of epidemiology as well as family and community medicine, classifies incarceration as an epidemic because it is a situation with widespread and rapid onset over 35 years, it affects a disproportionately large number of people within a population, and its spread and adverse effects are felt even by those who are not incarcerated. Like other epidemics, incarceration is contagious and has the potential to benefit from preventive approaches. An example of that contagion is, as Drucker has demonstrated, that exposure to prior cases increases transmission risk. In particular, the children of incarcerated people have lower life expectancy and are six to seven times more likely to be imprisoned themselves.

A public health concern warrants a public health response. We need to address the conditions for its spread, prevent its adverse impacts on children and families, and identify more effective ways to stop our “school to prison pipeline” by creating the conditions for positive trajectories for every member of the most vulnerable communities.

For the full article Putting a Public Health Lens on Incarceration