AIDS Rate In Prison Is Six Times National Rate
NEW YORK, Dec 29 (Reuters Health) -- Compared with all people
with AIDS, incarcerated people with AIDS are more likely to be
male, to be black, to be younger at the time of diagnosis, and to
use injection drugs, according to researchers at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.
In addition, from 1994 to 1996, the prevalence of AIDS among
prison inmates in the US was 199 per 100,000, six times the
national rate of 31 per 100,000, the government scientists say.
Female inmates had especially high rates of AIDS, 287 per
100,000, or 23 times the national rate for women.
High rates of AIDS were also evident among incarcerated Hispanics
and blacks, with 313 and 253 cases per 100,000, respectively,
compared with 100 per 100,000 among incarcerated whites.
By geographic region, the south and the northeast had the highest
rates of incarcerated AIDS patients during the study period, Drs.
Hazel Dean-Gaitor and Patricia Fleming report in the December 3rd
issue of the journal AIDS.
These figures, Dean-Gaitor and Fleming emphasize, represent a
"conservative estimate of the incarcerated population with AIDS."
The study represents "one step in understanding the scope of HIV
within prisons better and is long overdue," according to a journal
editorial by Dr. Timothy Flanigan and colleagues from Brown
University in Providence, Rhode Island.
"The next step," they say, "is to facilitate a coordinated, effective,
and compassionate response" to HIV care among incarcerated
persons.
"Many individuals who are incarcerated have been 'invisible' to the
medical system," they point out. "In order to reach these
individuals, incarceration must be seen as an opportunity to initiate
comprehensive medical care that can then continue in the
community after release."