Incarceration of parent is associated with worse access to health care for millions of US children, new study shows: Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
2022 NOV 24 (NewsRx) -- By a
The study was published in
“Exposure to parental incarceration is a key adverse childhood experience with physical and mental health impacts across the course of the lives of these kids,”
Parental incarceration is also disproportionately concentrated among Black, poor, and rural children. The inequitable and racialized distribution of parental incarceration can lead to other adverse exposures, including child poverty.
“While children and adolescents are living with their other parent or caregiver, parental incarceration can disrupt access to care for them through the loss of health insurance and fewer caregivers to help with responsibilities like routine healthcare visits,” explains
The study’s findings support structural interventions to address care disruption from childhood to early adulthood among individuals exposed to parental incarceration. This spans multiple levels of intervention, including clinical screening tools, institutional efforts to support families and communities impacted by incarceration, and policy interventions to improve access to care for this marginalized population of children.
“Adverse childhood experiences like parental incarceration are not just isolated experiences-they are symptoms of broader structural challenges,” said Dr.
Suggested approaches at jails and prisons to help support families include offering training for staff on the impact of parental incarceration on children and families, ensuring parental needs are assessed at intake, linking impacted families to community resources, supporting family-friendly visits between parents, their children, and systems that impact their children (for example, their children’s teachers), implementing evidence-based parent management training programs, involving caregivers in facility programming, and including caregivers and children in reentry planning.
The study authors conclude that trauma-informed, cross-sector partnerships between jails, prisons, policymakers, and clinicians are needed to reduce the life-changing impacts of incarceration on future generations.
Boston Children’s
Lurie Children’s
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