This is an application for a supplement to the Women Inmates' Health Study (WIHS), a study of the HIV risk behaviors of new women prison inmates that is currently in the data collection phase. The goal of the supplement is to analyze WIHS data.
The specific aims are to: (a) develop the prevalence rates of specific problems, including HIV risk behaviors, psychiatric disorders, and exposure to trauma, among women felons entering prison in North Carolina; (b) examine the bivariate relationship between AIDS risk behaviors and a variety of other potentially predisposing and outcome variables; (c) use multivariate techniques to model the relation ship between potential antecedent variables and AIDS risk behaviors to determine which factors increase or reduce the behaviors that put an individual at risk for developing AIDS; (d) examine the co-occurrence of substance abuse and specific psychiatric disorders, and substance abuse disorders with each other; (e) compare the sociodemographic characteristics and criminal offense of those eligible for the study (i.e., women convicted of felonies and sentenced to active prison terms) with those for other groups of women involved in the criminal justice system (e.g., women felons sentenced to probation) to help to determine the generalizability of the findings; (f) compare prevalence rates of the psychiatric disorders (including the substance abuse disorders) of incarcerated women felons to those of demographically similar women jail inmates in Cook County, Chicago, and women community residents in North Carolina; and (g) examine the relationship of the specific characteristics of traumatic events to the subsequent behavioral and mental health outcomes for the victim, such as psychiatric disorder or HIV risk behaviors. The proposed study is important because it will help us to understand factors that predispose some women criminal offenders to engage in AIDS risk behaviors and drug use. It will also help us to understand factors that intervene between trauma and its outcomes, such as psychiatric disorder and HIV risk behaviors. The study is most significant because it can provide information that can be used to target high-risk individuals and to develop intervention programs for those exhibiting HIV risk behaviors.
| Jordan, B Kathleen; Federman, E Belle; Burns, Barbara J et al. (2002) Lifetime use of mental health and substance abuse treatment services by incarcerated women felons. Psychiatr Serv 53:317-25 |
| Cotten-Oldenburg, N U; Jordan, B K; Martin, S L et al. (1999) Voluntary HIV testing in prison: do women inmates at high risk for HIV accept HIV testing? AIDS Educ Prev 11:28-37 |
| Cotten-Oldenburg, N U; Jordan, B K; Martin, S L et al. (1999) Women inmates' risky sex and drug behaviors: are they related? Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse 25:129-49 |
| Jordan, B K; Schlenger, W E; Fairbank, J A et al. (1996) Prevalence of psychiatric disorders among incarcerated women. II. Convicted felons entering prison. Arch Gen Psychiatry 53:513-9 |
