Promoting Health with Incarcerated Women: Community Empowerment Strategies in Action

By Kathleen Harris, RN, BSN

Health concerns related to substance abuse, injection drug use (IDU) and HIV/AIDS have reached critical levels; nowhere is the situation more urgent than in Canadian prisons (Werb, Kerr, Small, Montaner & Wood, 2008). Despite overwhelming empirical evidence to support harm reduction strategies like needle exchange programs and Methadone Maintenance Programs (MMP) for IDU, research that uses a collaborative and holistic approach is rare. Two studies reported in this paper offer exceptions. The research was done in collaboration with the inmates and the results from one study revealed what incarcerated women identified as their priority areas of concern while in prison, and what the inmates feel is most crucial to their successful return to the community, in the other. These women report that their major concerns are for addictions and IDU management, life skills training, opportunities for family health education, and spirituality. The strategies in this paper incorporated principles of community empowerment to develop training and educational opportunities for the women that focus on their capacities and strengths. Addressing the female inmates’ concerns has the potential to improve their health not only in prisons, but also on their return to communities. Capacity-focused interventions, such as those suggested in this study, necessitate ongoing evaluation, collaboration, and input from the female inmates.

Kathleen Harris is a graduate student in the APL-MN program at the UVic School of Nursing and the recipient of the 2012 Sochan Essay Award for Nursing for her essay, “Promoting Health in Incarcerated Women: Community Empowerment Strategies in Action”.

References

Martin, R., Murphy, K., Ramsden, V., Granger-Brown, A., Maccauly, A., Kahlon, R., Olgilvie, G., & Hislop, T. (2009). Primary health
care: applying the principles within a community-based participatory health research project that began in a Canadian
women’s prison. Global health Promotion 16(43). doi: 10.1177/1757975909348114

Werb, D., Kerr, T., Small, L., Montaner, J., & Wood, E. (2008). HIV risk associated with incarceration among injection drug users:
implications for prison-based public health strategies. Journal of Public Health 30(2), 126-132.doi: 10.1093/pubmed/fdn021

From the 2012 Spring Communiqué — Informatics