Principles for making prisons and places of detention resilient to infectious diseases, including epidemic and pandemic threats

ABSTRACT

This document aims to provide national and subnational authorities involved in prison health andprison health-care services with practical principles and actions for addressing five managementphases prepare, prevent, detect and respond to infectious diseases, further strengthened bybuilding connectedness of prisons with wider health systems. This document also aims to enhancecapacity to tackle social determinants of health and to accelerate progress towards achieving thesustainable development goals, including universal health coverage. The document was developedthrough evidence review, remote expert consultation and interaction with experts during a dedicatedinternational conference. The evidence review focused on the five management phases applied tothe prison setting, leading to a draft collating the evidence, which was then used to identify keyquestions to be addressed and discussed during an international conference of stakeholders inprison health and global experts in infectious diseases in June 2023. A second evidence review wasconducted during which identified evidence gaps were further searched. Although this documentis primarily intended for policy-makers and policy-makers, it is expected that the document isalso useful for the health-care workforce in prisons and other places of detention. Thus, all coreprinciples presented are supported by recommendations for implementation.