Public health and prisons: the challenges and health gains

Prisons collect public health problems, often overcrowding them in old and inadequate premises which encourage disease rather than maintain health. This presentation will give some of the facts about the characteristics of prisoner populations and the life-threatening diseases which are over represented in such situations. To ignore what has been shown to be effective treatment while this hard to reach group are in prison is to build up health problems in local communities and to ignore threats to health and public health of all. Yet being aware of the issues can be an effective first step in getting simple steps considered which can make a worthwhile difference.