ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: More than 30 million adults are released from incarceration globally each year. Many experience complex physical and mental health problems, and are at markedly increased risk of preventable mortality. Despite this, evidence regarding the global epidemiology of mortality following release from incarceration is insufficient to inform the development of targeted, evidence-based responses. Many previous studies have suffered from inadequate power and poor precision, and even large studies have limited capacity to disaggregate data by specific causes of death, sub-populations or time since release to answer questions of clinical and public health relevance. OBJECTIVES: To comprehensively document the incidence, timing, causes and risk factors for mortality in adults released from prison. METHODS: We created the Mortality After Release from Incarceration Consortium (MARIC), a multi-disciplinary collaboration representing 29 cohorts of adults who have experienced incarceration from 11 countries. Findings across cohorts will be analysed using a two-step, individual participant data meta-analysis methodology. RESULTS: The combined sample includes 1,337,993 individuals (89% male), with 75,795 deaths recorded over 9,191,393 person-years of follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: The consortium represents an important advancement in the field, bringing international attention to this problem. It will provide internationally relevant evidence to guide policymakers and clinicians in reducing preventable deaths in this marginalized population. KEY WORDS: Mortality; incarceration; prison; release; individual participant data meta-analysis; consortium; cohort.
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses problems that are common to both the epidemiologic risk-factor approach and the demographic variable-based approach to studying population health. We argue that there is a shared reluctance to move away from a narrow variable-based thinking that pervades both disciplines, and a tendency to reify the multivariate linear procedures employed in both disciplines. In particular, we concentrate on the difficulties generated by classical variable-based approaches that are especially striking when one neglects selection processes and the use of strategies to minimize its effects. We illustrate these difficulties in terms of the so-called "Hispanic Paradox", which refers to comparative health advantages that some Hispanic groups appear to have. We find that much of what is conceived by demographers and epidemiologists as a paradox may not be paradoxical at all.
