HIV/AIDS education for women in jail could reduce epidemic ...( CHICAGO --- Providing HIV and AIDS educ...),Health

Many women at particular risk for HIV and AIDS women who use drugs, women who trade sex for money or drugs, homeless women and women with mental illness eventually will cycle through jail. Research has shown that women in correctional settings have even higher HIV infection rates than their male counterparts.

Most female jail detainees return to their communities within days of arraignment. Thus, there is an acute public health need to provide HIV and AIDS education to these women during their incarceration, says Gary M. McClelland, assistant professor of psychiatry and behaviorial sciences at The Feinberg School of Medicine.

McClelland, a researcher in the Psycholegal Studies Program at Northwestern University, and colleagues published the results of the first comprehensive study of AIDS risk behavior of women in a correctional setting in the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

The study, which was part of a larger study of psychiatric disorders among female jail detainees and funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, examined the sexual and injection drug use HIV and AIDS risk behaviors of 950 women in the Cook County Department of Corrections in Chicago.

According to McClelland, the study showed that HIV and AIDS risk behaviors are extremely prevalent among women in jail and that there are distinct markers for women at greatest risk:

• Women arrested for misdemeanors and nonviolent crimes, such as drug crimes, prostitution and theft, women with substance abuse disorders and non-Hispanic white women are at high risk for both sexually and drug-transmitted HIV infections and AIDS.
• Older women in jail are at particular risk for injection drug use-trans
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