IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/evarev/v35y2011i2p118-128.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluating Health Outcomes of Criminal Justice Populations Using Record Linkage: The Importance of Aliases

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah Larney

    (Centre for Health Research in Criminal Justice, Justice Health, New South Wales, Australia, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia, sarah.larney@justicehealth.nsw.gov.au)

  • Lucy Burns

    (National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia)

Abstract

Individuals in contact with the criminal justice system are a key population of concern to public health. Record linkage studies can be useful for studying health outcomes for this group, but the use of aliases complicates the process of linking records across databases. This study was undertaken to determine the impact of aliases on sensitivity and specificity of record linkage and how this affects ascertainment of mortality. Records for a cohort of prisoners were linked to methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) and mortality records. The record linkage was conducted in two stages. First, the linkage was undertaken using the participant’s name and date of birth as recorded in a prior study. Then, a second linkage was undertaken using these identifiers, plus all known aliases. Sensitivity was 64%, and specificity 100%, for the first linkage. When aliases were added to the linkage, sensitivity increased to 86% and specificity remained 100%. The standardized mortality ratio was 4.3 for the first linkage, increasing to 6.1 when aliases were used. These results suggest that the potential effects of participant aliases on linkage outcomes, and methods for mitigating these effects should be carefully considered when planning and undertaking record linkage studies with criminal justice populations.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Larney & Lucy Burns, 2011. "Evaluating Health Outcomes of Criminal Justice Populations Using Record Linkage: The Importance of Aliases," Evaluation Review, , vol. 35(2), pages 118-128, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:evarev:v:35:y:2011:i:2:p:118-128
    DOI: 10.1177/0193841X11401695
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0193841X11401695
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0193841X11401695?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rosen, D.L. & Schoenbach, V.J. & Wohl, D.A., 2008. "All-cause and cause-specific mortality among men released from state prison, 1980-2005," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(12), pages 2278-2284.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James C. Oleson, 2016. "The New Eugenics: Black Hyper-Incarceration and Human Abatement," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-20, October.
    2. Gunter, Tracy D. & Chibnall, John T. & Antoniak, Sandra K. & Philibert, Robert A. & Hollenbeck, Nancy, 2011. "Predictors of suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and self-harm without lethal intent in a community corrections sample," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 238-245, May.
    3. Connor M. Sheehan, 2019. "Education and Health Conditions Among the Currently Incarcerated and the Non-incarcerated Populations," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 38(1), pages 73-93, February.
    4. Becky Pettit & Carmen Gutierrez, 2018. "Mass Incarceration and Racial Inequality," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(3-4), pages 1153-1182, May.
    5. Meghan A Novisky & Kathryn M Nowotny & Dylan B Jackson & Alexander Testa & Michael G Vaughn, 2021. "Incarceration as a Fundamental Social Cause of Health Inequalities: Jails, Prisons and Vulnerability to COVID-19 [‘Flattening the Curve for Incarcerated Populations—Covid-19 in Jails and Prisons’]," The British Journal of Criminology, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, vol. 61(6), pages 1630-1646.
    6. Guy C M Skinner & David P Farrington & Darrick Jolliffe, 2022. "Criminal Careers and Early Death: Relationships In the Cambridge Study In Delinquent Development," The British Journal of Criminology, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, vol. 62(4), pages 840-856.
    7. Sebastian Daza & Alberto Palloni & Jerrett Jones, 2020. "The Consequences of Incarceration for Mortality in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(2), pages 577-598, April.
    8. Christopher Wildeman & Margaret E. Noonan & Daniela Golinelli & E. Ann Carson & Natalia Emanuel, 2016. "State-level variation in the imprisonment-mortality relationship, 2001−2010," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 34(12), pages 359-372.
    9. Stuart A Kinner & Simon J Forsyth, 2016. "Development and Validation of a National System for Routine Monitoring of Mortality in People Recently Released from Prison," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(6), pages 1-11, June.
    10. Semenza, Daniel C. & Testa, Alexander M. & Jackson, Dylan B. & Vaughn, Michael G., 2021. "Incarceration and cardiovascular health: Multiple mechanisms within an intersectional framework," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    11. 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.

    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:sae:evarev:v:35:y:2011:i:2:p:118-128. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.