Researchers searched the records for keywords such as “incarcerated,” “parole” and “jail” for signs of justice system involvement, and then compared the records of patients with a justice keyword in their chart with those of demographically similar patients.
Ultimately, the researchers identified nearly 38,300 patients with justice keywords in their files, 2.2 percent of the total sample. The overall group was majority-White (64 percent). While Black patients made up just 12.8 percent of the larger group, 28.2 percent of those with justice keywords in their records were Black.
Over a third of patients whose charts indicated they were in child welfare custody also had a justice keyword.
Patients with justice keywords made up 42.9 percent of all schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders, 42.1 percent of bipolar and related disorders, and 38.3 percent of suicide and self-injury diagnoses, and were disproportionately diagnosed with physical conditions such as neurodevelopmental disorders (69.7 percent) and shaken baby syndrome (44.9 percent).
Given that an estimated 7 percent of U.S. youths have had an incarcerated parent, the numbers in the study are probably “a gross underestimation of the true exposure of personal or family incarceration in youth served by this institution,” the researchers note. The “vast disparities” suggested by their analysis could help inform future research, they write.
“We will continue to have health care disparities and lead the world with poor health outcomes if we continue to lead in incarceration,” Samantha Boch, an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing and the paper’s lead author, says in a news release.
