IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aph/ajpbhl/10.2105-ajph.2007.133389_3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Characteristics and behaviors associated with HIV infection among inmates in the North Carolina prison system

Author

Listed:
  • Rosen, D.L.
  • Schoenbach, V.J.
  • Wohl, D.A.
  • White, B.L.
  • Stewart, P.W.
  • Golin, C.E.

Abstract

Objectives. We identified factors associated with testing HIV positive in a prison system performing voluntary HIV testing on inmates and estimated the number of undetected HIV cases to evaluate the efficacy of risk-factor-based HIV testing. Methods. We used logistic regression to estimate associations between HIV serostatus and HIV risk behaviors, mental health, coinfection status, and socio-demographic characteristics for prisoners entering the North Carolina Department of Correction from January 2004 through May 2006. We estimated the number of undetected HIV cases on the basis of age-, gender-, and race-specific HIV prevalences among prisoners and in the state. Results. Nearly 3.4% (718/21419) of tested prisoners were HIV positive. The strongest risk factors for infection among men were having sex with men (odds ratio [OR]=8.0), Black race (OR=6.2), other non-White race (OR=7.4), and being aged 35 to 44 years (OR=4.1). The strongest risk factor among women was Black race (OR=3.8). Among HIV-positive prisoners, 65% were coinfected with HCV. We estimated that between 24% (223) and 61% (1101) of HIV cases remained undetected. Conclusions. The associations between HIV serostatus and a variety of factors highlight the potential limitations of risk-factor-based HIV testing in prisons, as do the high number of potential undetected HIV cases.

Suggested Citation

  • Rosen, D.L. & Schoenbach, V.J. & Wohl, D.A. & White, B.L. & Stewart, P.W. & Golin, C.E., 2009. "Characteristics and behaviors associated with HIV infection among inmates in the North Carolina prison system," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 99(6), pages 1123-1130.
    • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2007.133389_3
    DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2007.133389
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2007.133389
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2105/AJPH.2007.133389?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Florence Huber & Alice Merceron & Yoann Madec & Gueda Gadio & Vincent About & Agathe Pastre & Isabelle Coupez & Antoine Adenis & Leila Adriouch & Mathieu Nacher, 2017. "High mortality among male HIV-infected patients after prison release: ART is not enough after incarceration with HIV," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(4), pages 1-15, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2007.133389_3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.apha.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.