Release Date
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Language of Resource
Full Text Available
Open Access / OK to Reproduce
Peer Reviewed
Objective
This is a commentary on a resent cost–benefit analysis done by Houdroge and colleagues of expanding needle exchange programs across federal prisons in Canada, who conclude that doing so would lead to substantial health care–related savings, particularly in the area of preventing transmissions of infections.
Findings/Key points
The authors of this article argue that incarceration-exposed individuals in Canada are disproportionately affected by a wide range of chronic diseases, including mental health and substance use disorders. Prison populations are not exempt from the devastating crisis of drug-related overdose deaths that has been unfolding across North America over the last decade. More comprehensive interventions to make substance use in correctional institutions safer, and specifically reduce related risks of acute death, are needed. They discuss substance use–related harm in correctional environments, efforts and measures developed to mitigate it, and how interventions can be expanded to improve the substance use–related health of incarcerated people in Canada.
