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May 7, 2008Prisoner HIV program leads to continuum of medical care after release |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: By linking HIV positive prisoners to community-based medical care prior to release through an innovative program called Project Bridge, 95 percent of ex-offenders were retained in health care for a year after being released from incarceration, according to researchers from The Miriam Hospital. The benefits of the program are far-reaching as ex-offenders engaged in medical care are more likely to achieve social stabilization and less likely to return to prison. "Ex-offenders are often released to impoverished communities from which they came -- the potential this environment offers for relapse into drug use and lack of access to health care poses a threat to the health benefits they may have gained during incarceration," says principal investigator Leah Holmes, M.S.W., project director of Project Bridge and an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work. "Ultimately, this can impose a burden on tax payers who end up paying for re-incarceration and/or emergency room visits for those not taking their medications." This particular study focused on a total of 59 participants who were enrolled in Project Bridge during the reporting period, May 2003 to December 2005. In conjunction with the HIV specialty care within the prison that Miriam Hospital physicians were already providing, Holmes launched the program in 1997 with the primary goal of retaining HIV positive ex-offenders in medical care through social stabilization. Holmes credits the use of professional social workers with making a difference when it comes to the program's effectiveness, in addition to the length of enrollment, intensity of the program, and collaboration between staff.
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