High Prevalence of HIV Infection Seen Among Incarcerated Women

Originally published by Reuters Health, April 29, 2002

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) — HIV and AIDS risk behaviors are highly prevalent among urban women jailed for relatively minor infractions of the law, according to a report in the America Journal of Public Health for May. Specific subgroups of women, including Caucasians, older women, women with prior arrests, and those with severe mental illness, bear the highest risk.

Dr. Gary Michael McClelland, of Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, and colleagues interviewed 948 women who entered the Cook County Department of Corrections system between 1991 and 1993.

Ten percent of non-Hispanic white women reported having at least 100 sexual partners in the previous year, compared with 3.8% of Hispanic and 1.1% of African-American women. Non-Hispanic whites also had higher rates of injection drug use, reported by 41.9% of whites, 16.5% of Hispanics and 14.5% of blacks.

Dr. McClelland's group estimated that, while the median injection drug use risk was 0 for those younger than 30 years old, it was greater than 40 for those 30 years or older. Women arrested for the first time had lower sexual and drug use risk scores. Risks were higher for those previously arrested for possession or sale of drugs, prostitution, theft or weapons.

Those with moderate to severe major mood disorders or psychosis also had high sexual risk scores, and "a subset of women with serious mental illness engaged in the most extreme sexual risk behaviors."

"If we want to stem the AIDS epidemic," Dr. McClelland told Reuters Health," a cost-effective place to start is the jail, because these individuals are engaging in high rates of behaviors that promote the epidemic. We know from experience that these are people with specific needs that we are capable of addressing."