Global study reveals disparities in prisoner health studies

A new study published in the Journal of Formative Research in Medical Internet Research reveals stark differences in research related to prisoner health, both between countries with different income levels and between academic researchers working with incarcerated prisoners and between criminals.

The investigation was led by Dr George Karystianis and Professor Tony Butler from the UNSW School of Population Health, UNSW Medicine and Health, with research support from Mr Wilson Lukmanjaya and Dr Natasha Ginnivan. Research results in epidemiological criminology.

The researchers examined seven decades of outcomes related to epidemiological criminology, a discipline that applies epidemiological concepts to the criminal justice field. Their analysis showed that significant differences in income status across countries, from low-income countries such as Pakistan and Malawi to high-income countries such as Switzerland and Australia, had a significant impact on the findings.

The team used advanced natural language processing technology to automatically analyze more than 20,000 published abstracts related to offender health, exploring different research areas in the field.

“We have been conducting research in this area for more than 20 years and it’s great to be able to step back and think about what is being researched and how it is being researched,” Professor Butler said.

“Text mining allows us to quickly process large amounts of data that would be impossible for humans to examine in a reasonable amount of time.”

The study also compared the research with priorities identified by prisoners, finding that only mental health, infectious disease and substance abuse emerged as significant survey topics.

Topics such as cognitive and intellectual disability, transition from prison to community and post-release health maintenance, health care services, education and women’s/maternal health were considered important concerns, but in terms of research topics they were represented Sex is still relatively deficient.