Transitions Home: A Health Needs Assessment for Individuals Leaving Boston-Area Jails

Abstract

Incarceration has profound impacts on health, particularly in the US, which continues to incarcerate more people than any country on earth. Incarceration may disrupt continuity of care and contribute to adverse social determinants of health, such as unstable housing and employment. The period immediately following release from prison or jail has been found to bear an extremely high mortality risk. Academic medical centers thus should have a natural interest in understanding the experience of transitioning home after incarceration. Local stakeholders in the Boston reentry landscape were identified and interviewed. A qualitative analysis of these interviews was conducted, resulting in this report on the reentry services landscape, with particular concern for: currently existing services; challenges to serving the reentry population; and, opportunities for academic medical centers, policy makers, and individual clinicians to innovate and provide better care for this marginalized population.