Overview

Program Head: Dr Mark Stoove

Prisoners and ex-prisoners in Australia and elsewhere are disproportionately affected by social disadvantage, chronic ill health and preventable disease (including blood borne and sexually transmitted infections), mental illness and high rates of substance misuse – often a continuation of problems experienced prior to imprisonment.

The Justice Health group undertakes innovative, scientifically rigorous and policy-relevant research projects that employ a range of methodologies including prospective cohort designs, randomised controlled trials and record linkage to enhance the evidence base for justice health policy and practice.

Objectives

• Build upon national and international collaborations to enable the Centre for Population Health to play a central role in internationally significant studies that identify effective (evidence-based) interventions for improving and maintaining the health of justice-involved populations
• Build and strengthen collaborations with correctional services nationwide, to facilitate translation of our research into effective health policy and service delivery
• Undertake research to explore how health, health risk behaviours, psychosocial adjustment and engagement with health services change and are impacted by contact with, and release from the criminal justice system; and explore the links between health, social integration and offending behaviour

Highlights

• Research led by former Burnet researcher, Associate Professor Stuart Kinner published in the Medical Journal of Australia estimated that the number of deaths in recently released prisoners in Australia is ten times higher than the total number of deaths in prison each year, highlighting the extreme vulnerability of this population on return to the community. This research demonstrates the urgent need to establish a national system for routing monitoring of ex-prisoner mortality, and for the implementation of evidence-based programs to reduce mortality and improve health outcomes for this profoundly marginalised group.

Projects

• 'Hit & Miss': Exploring the health and service needs of ex-prisoners with a history of injecting drug use
  Ex-prisoners with a history of injecting drug use will be followed for six months post-release to observe their drug use and health trajectories and examine discrepancies between their health needs and service access.
• A prospective cohort study of ex-prisoners with a history of injecting drug use
  The largest ever prospective study of ex-prisoners with a history of injecting drug use in Australia.
• CREIDU - Centre for Research Excellence into Injecting Drug Use
  Improving the health of people who inject drugs through research that generates new evidence and informs public health policy and practice.
• Evaluation of condom distribution trial in Victorian prisons
  The evaluation of a pilot program introducing condoms and dental dams into Victorian Prisons.
• Monitoring HIV, risk behaviour and health service utilisation among prisoners and ex-prisoners in Fiji
  This research will provide the first ever estimate of HIV and syphilis prevalence among a representative sample of prisoners in Fiji and examine health risks, status and service utilisation post-release.