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Study: People in prison around the world have higher rates of mental illness

Members of the prison population globally had a range of complex and often overlapping physical and mental health conditions.

Police van in London. — Image © Tim Sandle
Police van in London. — Image © Tim Sandle

People in prison have higher rates of mental illness, infectious diseases and poor physical health, a new study from the University of Oxford finds.

The study is a global analysis and it found those in prison had high rates of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as substance use and alcohol use disorders. Infectious diseases were also common.

For the research, academics compiled and reviewed previous major studies into prison health in more than 50 high, medium and low-income countries, which included data from more than two million people in prison.

These data indicated members of the prison population globally had a range of complex and often overlapping physical and mental health conditions, including:

  • 11.4 percent had depression, as compared to 6-8 percent in the general population.
  • 9.8 percent had PTSD and 3.7 percent had a psychotic disorder (also at least double the rate in the general population).
  • Nearly one in four (23.8 percent) had an alcohol use disorder and 38.9 percent had a drug use disorder on entry to prison.
  • 17 percent had Hepatitis C with prevalence of Hepatitis B, HIV and tuberculosis in excess of community-based people, and significant rates of sexually transmitted infections (including gonorrhoea, chlamydia and syphilis).

These outcomes indicate that better health provision for prisoners is required.  

Professor Seena Fazel, senior author and Professor of Forensic Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, states: “Our findings indicate that incarcerated persons across the world consistently experience poor health across a wide range of mental and physical conditions. Yet, even in high-income settings, considerable variation exists in the quality and availability of prison health care.”

Fazel adds: “Given almost all people in prison will be released at some point, improving their health during imprisonment has the potential to improve the health of the communities to which they will return.”

The researchers call upon national governments to develop and implement strategies to meet the complex health needs of people in prisons.

Around 11 million people are in prison worldwide on any given day. An ongoing the challenge is to identify the extent to which imprisonment can be both a cause and consequence of ill health. This means more research is needed in this area.

The research is published in The Lancet Public Health Journal, titled “Mental and physical morbidity among people in prisons: an umbrella review”.

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Written By

Dr. Tim Sandle is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for science news. Tim specializes in science, technology, environmental, business, and health journalism. He is additionally a practising microbiologist; and an author. He is also interested in history, politics and current affairs.

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