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| Jail Is AIDS Education Opportunity for Women |
| By Reuters Health |
| Published: 05/27/2002 |
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Jail time may offer an opportunity to educate women about HIV and AIDS and reduce the spread of the disease, new study findings suggest. Women who are most at risk for HIV and AIDS--those who use drugs, trade sex for money or drugs, are homeless or have mental illness--typically spend time in jail, according to the study published in the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health. 'More women are arrested and jailed each year,' said lead author Dr. Gary Michael McClelland of Northwestern University in Chicago in a prepared statement. 'We have found that these women are at great risk for HIV infection, and most will return to the community within days of arrest,' he added. 'For these reasons, interventions targeting AIDS risk behaviors among women in jail will reduce AIDS in the community.' In the study, McClelland's team looked at the sexual and drug behaviors of 948 women who spent time in the Cook County Department of Corrections between 1991 and 1993. In all, 32% of the woman reported never using any type of protection during sexual intercourse and 9% reported that they had shared needles when injecting drugs. 'Interventions should begin--but not end--with women jailed for less serious offenses,' according to the report. 'These women engage in the most serious HIV and AIDS risk behaviors, and these women will return to the community the soonest.' |
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