Risk of COVID-19 infection among prison staff in the United States

Abstract Background Multiple large outbreaks of COVID-19 have been documented in prisons and jails across regions of the world, with hazardous environmental conditions amplify the risks of exposure for both incarcerated people and correctional staff. The objectives of this study are to estimate the cumulative prevalence of COVID-19 cases among U.S. prison staff over time and compare it to the prison inmate population and the general U.S. population, overall, and to examine risk of COVID-19 infection among prison staff across jurisdictions. Methods We use publicly available data (April 22, 2020 to January 15, 2021) to estimate COVID-19 crude case rates per 1000 with 95% confidence intervals over the study period for prison staff, incarcerated population, and general population. We also compare COVID-19 case rates between prison staff and the general population within jurisdictions. Results Over the study period, prison staff have reported consistently higher rates of COVID-19 compared to the general population, with prison staff case rates more closely mirroring the incarcerated population case rates. The rolling 7-day average case rates for prison staff, prison population, and general population on January 15, 2021 were 196.04 per 1000 (95%CI 194.81, 197.26), 219.16 (95%CI 218.45, 219.86), and 69.80 (95%CI 69.78, 69.83), respectively. There was substantial heterogeneity across jurisdictions, yet in 87% of study jurisdictions, the risk of COVID-19 was significantly greater among prison staff than the general state population. Conclusions Targeting staff for COVID-19 mitigation strategies is essential to protect the health of people who intersect with the correctional system and to flatten the curve in the surrounding communities.

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The Aging Prison Population

Criminology ◽

10.1093/obo/9780195396607-0246 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Samuel Scaggs

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Prison Population ◽

The United States ◽

Policy Recommendations ◽

Correctional Institutions ◽

Government Officials ◽

Inmate Population ◽

Older Prisoners ◽

Nursing Services ◽

Policy Concern

Since the 1980s, the proportion of state and federal prisoners who are older has experienced unprecedented changes to the extent that they currently represent the fastest-growing inmate population in the United States. This increase has become an important policy concern for government officials and correctional administrators due to older prisoners’ health-care and confinement expenses. Consequently, politicians are increasingly under pressure to implement innovative policies to respond to the growth in this low-risk, albeit costly, prisoner population. At the same time, correctional administrators in several states are planning for the increased use of nursing services. The study of older prisoners involves scholarly works from an amalgam of disciplines including criminology, demography, economics, gerontology, public health, social work, and sociology. To study aging in prison, researchers must first understand the conceptual definitions ascribed to being older in prison and the typology of older prisoners. They must also gain a sense of social and demographic contributors to the aging inmate population over time. These explanations lend themselves to a description of health-care issues associated with an increasingly aging prisoner population. Since older prisoners are similar to their younger counterparts in that many will return to the community, the reader must also understand reentry issues among older ex-prisoners. Finally, the growth in the proportion of older prisoners has been followed by an array of policy recommendations to address the growth in older prisoners, meet the needs of prisoners aging inside correctional institutions, and assist older ex-prisoners with their transition back to the community.

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“Whoever Dies, Dies”: A Pedagogical Model forUnderstanding the COVID-19 Outbreak in United States Prisons

Human Organization ◽

10.17730/1938-3525-80.4.282 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 80 (4) ◽

pp. 282-291

Author(s):

Jason Bartholomew Scott

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

General Population ◽

Government Policy ◽

Prison Population ◽

Self Care ◽

The United States ◽

Pedagogical Model ◽

Social Death ◽

Preventative Measures ◽

History Of

A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly half of the United States prison population, or five times the rate found in the general population, had been infected. Limited social distancing and difficult to implement preventative measures helped to spread COVID-19 in prisons, while many incarcerated individuals felt that government policy prevented their ability to self-care. These feelings of alienation reflect a history of policy that links disease to deviance and social death. Based on the written self-reflections of anthropology students in Wisconsin prisons, this article outlines an ethnographic and pedagogical model for analyzing pandemic policy. Students learned to relate anthropological terminology to their critiques of policy and revealed how prisoners adapted to feelings of invisibility and hopelessness during a pandemic.

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20/20 Hindsight: Effectiveness of Simulating the Impact of Federal Sentencing Legislation on the Future Prison Population

The Prison Journal ◽

10.1177/0032855593073001002 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 73 (1) ◽

pp. 5-29

Author(s):

GERALD G. GAES ◽

ERIC S. SIMON ◽

WILLIAM M. RHODES

Keyword(s):

Prison Population ◽

The United States ◽

Sentencing Guidelines ◽

Impact Model ◽

Policy Debate ◽

Federal Prison ◽

The Public ◽

Inmate Population ◽

The Future ◽

The Impact

This article describes the results of a sentencing legislation and policy simulation conducted to project the federal inmate population. The simulation model was developed in response to a congressional mandate that the United States Sentencing Commission evaluate the impact of its sentencing guidelines on the future federal prison population. In mid-1987 the model was used to project changes in the use of probation and prison length of stay. The model accurately projected the impact of dramatic changes in sentencing structure that increased the federal prison population by 52% in the 4 years since the end of calendar year 1987. The article also discusses the interrelationships between sentencing legislation, sentencing practices, changes in criminal justice resource allocations, prison population “caps,” and the use of an impact model to inform the public policy debate surrounding the use of prison as a sanction.

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The Unusual Cruelty of Nursing Homes Behind Bars

Federal Sentencing Reporter ◽

10.1525/fsr.2020.32.5.264 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 32 (5) ◽

pp. 264-271

Author(s):

Rachel E. López

Keyword(s):

Nursing Homes ◽

Human Dignity ◽

Prison Population ◽

Financial Burden ◽

The Elderly ◽

The United States ◽

Term Care ◽

Trained Staff ◽

State Prisons ◽

The Cost

The elderly prison population continues to rise along with higher rates of dementia behind bars. To maintain the detention of this elderly population, federal and state prisons are creating long-term care units, which in turn carry a heavy financial burden. Prisons are thus gearing up to become nursing homes, but without the proper trained staff and adequate financial support. The costs both to taxpayers and to human dignity are only now becoming clear. This article squarely addresses the second dimension of this carceral practice, that is the cost to human dignity. Namely, it sets out why indefinitely incarcerating someone with dementia or other neurocognitive disorders violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. This conclusion derives from the confluence of two lines of U.S. Supreme Court precedent. First, in Madison v. Alabama, the Court recently held that executing someone (in Madison’s case someone with dementia) who cannot rationally understand their sentence amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Second, in line with Miller v. Alabama, which puts life without parole (LWOP) sentences in the same class as death sentences due to their irrevocability, this holding should be extended to LWOP sentences. Put another way, this article explains why being condemned to life is equivalent to death for someone whose neurodegenerative disease is so severe that they cannot rationally understand their punishment.

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Faculty Opinions recommendation of Mortality of bullous pemphigoid: an evaluation of 223 patients and comparison with the mortality in the general population in the United States.

Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature ◽

10.3410/f.1127046.584178 ◽

2008 ◽

Author(s):

Detlef Zillikens

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

General Population ◽

Bullous Pemphigoid ◽

The United States

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307 A systems approach to understanding biosecurity decision-making

Journal of Animal Science ◽

10.1093/jas/skaa278.078 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 98 (Supplement_4) ◽

pp. 43-43

Author(s):

Scott C Merrill ◽

Christopher Koliba ◽

Gabriela Bucini ◽

Eric Clark ◽

Luke Trinity ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Risk Mitigation ◽

African Swine Fever Virus ◽

The United States ◽

Mitigation Strategies ◽

Communication Strategy ◽

Livestock Industry ◽

Diarrhea Virus ◽

Operational Level

Abstract Disease and its consequences result in social and economic impacts to the US animal livestock industry, ranging from losses in human capital to economic costs in excess of a billion dollars annually. Impacts would dramatically escalate if a devastating disease like Foot and Mouth Disease or African Swine Fever virus were to emerge in the United States. Investing in preventative biosecurity can reduce the likelihood of disease incursions and their negative impact on our livestock industry, yet uncertainty persists with regards to developing an effective biosecurity structure and culture. Here we show the implications of human behavior and decision making for biosecurity effectiveness, from the operational level to the owner/managerial level and finally to the systems level. For example, adjustments to risk messaging strategies could double worker compliance with biosecurity practices at the operational level. The improvement of our risk communication strategy may increase willingness to invest in biosecurity. Furthermore, the adaptation of policies could nudge behavior so that we observe a short disease outbreak followed by a quick eradication instead of a pandemic. Our research shows how the emergence of now-endemic diseases, such as Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus, cannot be adequately modeled without the use of a human behavioral component. Focusing solely on any one sector or level of the livestock system is not sufficient to predict emergent disease patterns and their social and economic impact on livestock industries. These results provide insight toward developing more effective risk mitigation strategies and ways to nudge behavior toward more disease resilient systems.

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Mathematical pattern of Kessler psychological distress distribution in the general population of the U.S. and Japan

BMC Psychiatry ◽

10.1186/s12888-021-03198-y ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Shinichiro Tomitaka ◽

Toshiaki A. Furukawa

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

General Population ◽

National Survey ◽

Goodness Of Fit ◽

Quadratic Function ◽

The United States ◽

Depression Screening ◽

Distribution Model ◽

Epidemiological Surveys ◽

Screening Scale

Abstract Background Although the 6-item Kessler psychological scale (K6) is a useful depression screening scale in clinical settings and epidemiological surveys, little is known about the distribution model of the K6 score in the general population. Using four major national survey datasets from the United States and Japan, we explored the mathematical pattern of the K6 distributions in the general population. Methods We analyzed four datasets from the National Health Interview Survey, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System in the United States, and the Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions in Japan. We compared the goodness of fit between three models: exponential, power law, and quadratic function models. Graphical and regression analyses were employed to investigate the mathematical patterns of the K6 distributions. Results The exponential function had the best fit among the three models. The K6 distributions exhibited an exponential pattern, except for the lower end of the distribution across the four surveys. The rate parameter of the K6 distributions was similar across all surveys. Conclusions Our results suggest that, regardless of different sample populations and methodologies, the K6 scores exhibit a common mathematical distribution in the general population. Our findings will contribute to the development of the distribution model for such a depression screening scale.

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COVID-TRACK: world and USA SARS-COV-2 testing and COVID-19 tracking

BioData Mining ◽

10.1186/s13040-021-00233-2 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Ye Emma Zohner ◽

Jeffrey S. Morris

Keyword(s):

Web Application ◽

The United States ◽

Mitigation Strategies ◽

Time Lags ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Major Health ◽

Dynamic Representation ◽

Graphical Displays ◽

The Usa ◽

User Friendly

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major health and socio-economic disruptions worldwide. Accurate investigation of emerging data is crucial to inform policy makers as they construct viral mitigation strategies. Complications such as variable testing rates and time lags in counting cases, hospitalizations and deaths make it challenging to accurately track and identify true infectious surges from available data, and requires a multi-modal approach that simultaneously considers testing, incidence, hospitalizations, and deaths. Although many websites and applications report a subset of these data, none of them provide graphical displays capable of comparing different states or countries on all these measures as well as various useful quantities derived from them. Here we introduce a freely available dynamic representation tool, COVID-TRACK, that allows the user to simultaneously assess time trends in these measures and compare various states or countries, equipping them with a tool to investigate the potential effects of the different mitigation strategies and timelines used by various jurisdictions. Findings COVID-TRACK is a Python based web-application that provides a platform for tracking testing, incidence, hospitalizations, and deaths related to COVID-19 along with various derived quantities. Our application makes the comparison across states in the USA and countries in the world easy to explore, with useful transformation options including per capita, log scale, and/or moving averages. We illustrate its use by assessing various viral trends in the USA and Europe. Conclusion The COVID-TRACK web-application is a user-friendly analytical tool to compare data and trends related to the COVID-19 pandemic across areas in the United States and worldwide. Our tracking tool provides a unique platform where trends can be monitored across geographical areas in the coming months to watch how the pandemic waxes and wanes over time at different locations around the USA and the globe.

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Hypertension in the United States Fire Service

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18105432 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (10) ◽

pp. 5432

Author(s):

Saeed U. Khaja ◽

Kevin C. Mathias ◽

Emilie D. Bode ◽

Donald F. Stewart ◽

Kepra Jack ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Blood Pressure ◽

General Population ◽

Age Groups ◽

Total Sample ◽

The United States ◽

Fire Service ◽

Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease ◽

Cardiac Events ◽

Antihypertensive Medications ◽

Increased Risk

Hypertension is a major risk factor for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and cardiac remodeling and is associated with an increased risk of sudden cardiac events, the leading cause of duty-related death in the fire service. We assessed systemic blood pressures and prevalence of hypertension among US firefighters by decade of life. Medical records of career firefighters (5063 males and 274 females) from four geographically diverse occupational health clinics were assessed. Hypertension was defined as systolic blood pressure ≥130 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure ≥80 mmHg, or taking antihypertensive medication. Results from the firefighter sample were compared to the US general population (2015–2016 and 2017–2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys). Among the total sample, 69% of firefighters met the criteria for hypertension and 17% were taking antihypertensive medications. Percentages of hypertensive male and female firefighters were 45% and 11% among 20–29 years old, respectively, and increased to 78% and 79% among 50–59 years old, respectively. Compared to the general population, male firefighters had a higher prevalence of hypertension (p < 0.05) across all age groups (11–16% higher). In order to improve firefighter health and protect against sudden incapacitation in this public safety occupational group, increased efforts are necessary to screen for and manage high blood pressure.

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