Policies and Practices in the Delivery of HIV Services in Correctional Agencies and Facilities: Results From a Multisite Survey

HIV risk is disproportionately high among incarcerated individuals. Corrections agencies have been slow to implement evidence-based guidelines and interventions for HIV prevention, testing, and treatment. The emerging field of implementation science focuses on organizational interventions to facilitate adoption and implementation of evidence-based practices. A survey of correctional agency partners from the Criminal Justice Drug Abuse Treatment Studies (CJ-DATS) revealed that HIV policies and practices in prevention, detection, and medical care varied widely, with some corrections agencies and facilities closely matching national guidelines and/or implementing evidence-based interventions. Others, principally attributed to limited resources, had numerous gaps in delivery of best HIV service practices. A brief overview is provided of a new CJ-DATS cooperative research protocol, informed by the survey findings, to test an organization-level intervention to reduce HIV service delivery gaps in corrections.

Source: Journal of Correctional Health Care - September 27, 2013 Category: Health Management Authors: Belenko, S., Hiller, M., Visher, C., Copenhaver, M., O'Connell, D., Burdon, W., Pankow, J., Clarke, J., Oser, C. Tags: Articles Source Type: research