New Rochelle, NY, February 17, 2021—Nearly half (46.7%) of women in the U.S. at risk for HIV have been incarcerated, according to a new study. The study is published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Women’s Health. Click here to read the article now.

The incarceration rate for women at risk for HIV was 5.5 per 100 person-years, compared to an estimated 0.16 per 100 person-years for women in the U.S. overall.

“Even among a sample of women who are identified as being at-risk of HIV, those with the greatest degree of ongoing HIV risk are those most often incarcerated,” says Jaimie Meyer, MD, Yale School of Medicine, in an accompanying editorial. “Moreover, one-fifth of participants had male sexual partners who were incarcerated prior to or during the women’s study involvement. This study confirms intersectional risks for both criminal justice involvement and HIV among a key population of women, which has important implications for interventions that can address health disparities.”

“Our findings suggest that there is a critical need to provide HIV prevention interventions for women who have experienced incarceration as part of an effort to disrupt the cycle of HIV risk and incarceration. In particular, U.S. women who experience HIV risk due to drug use are also likely to bear a disproportionate burden of policing, arrest and incarceration,” state AK Knittel, MD, PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, and coauthors.

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers T32 ES007018, U01-AI-035004, U01-AI-031834, U01-AI-034993, U01-AI-034994, U01-AI-103397, U01-AI-103390, U01-AI-034989, U01-AI-042590, U01-HD-032632. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

 

About the Journal
Journal of Women’s Health, published monthly, is a core multidisciplinary journal dedicated to the diseases and conditions that hold greater risk for or are more prevalent among women, as well as diseases that present differently in women. Led by Editor-in-Chief Susan G. Kornstein, MD, Executive Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women’s Health, Richmond, VA, the Journal covers the latest advances and clinical applications of new diagnostic procedures and therapeutic protocols for the prevention and management of women’s healthcare issues. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Journal of Women’s Health website. Journal of Women’s Health is the official journal of the Society for Women’s Health Research.

 

About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research. A complete list of the firm’s more than 90 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.