"It's gotta be really hard to be a mom inside right now:" a qualitative analysis on the impacts of COVID-19 on perinatal support programs for people in prison.
{"title":"\"It's gotta be really hard to be a mom inside right now:\" a qualitative analysis on the impacts of COVID-19 on perinatal support programs for people in prison.","authors":"Abaki Beck, Ingie Osman, Ashley Watson, Cheri Branham, Brittany Seaver, Aparea Smith, Noël L Marsh, Carolyn Sufrin, Rebecca J Shlafer","doi":"10.1186/s40352-025-00359-z","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Prisons are well understood to be hotspots of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, little is known about the impacts the COVID-19 pandemic has had on pregnant and postpartum people in prison. We conducted a secondary analysis of 63 semi-structured qualitative interviews (December 2021-May 2023) with subject matter experts, primarily perinatal program staff working in prisons, to better understand how perinatal support programs for people in prison were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We identified nine themes in interviews as impacting perinatal support programming for incarcerated pregnant and postpartum people during the COVID-19 pandemic: 1) prison COVID-19 preventative practices and their influences on perinatal support programs; 2) COVID-19 quarantine and confinement of pregnant and postpartum people; 3) changes in the pregnant and postpartum population and reentry support; 4) changes to birth support during incarceration; 5) lack of communication and inconsistency between the DOC and perinatal support programs; 6) DOC staffing and staff turnover; 7) lack of access to volunteer-led programming and visiting; 8) relationships between perinatal support programs and DOC healthcare providers; and 9) relationships between perinatal support programs and hospitals. Results were organized into a modified socioecological model, allowing us to view different spheres of influence, how they interact and overlap, and as we describe in the discussion section, where practitioners and policy-makers might intervene. In particular, we focused on the organizational, relational, and structural levels, with multiple themes organized into each level. All of these themes, together, help provide information on how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted perinatal support programs in prisons.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The COVID-19 pandemic had drastic impacts on prison operations and perinatal support programs, with cascading influences on the health and wellbeing of pregnant and postpartum people who are incarcerated. We conclude with a series of recommendations, developed by the research team and a community research council of formerly incarcerated individuals, that aim to address pandemic-related health disparities and promote health equity among those disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>","PeriodicalId":37843,"journal":{"name":"Health and Justice","volume":"13 1","pages":"54"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12403475/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Health and Justice","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40352-025-00359-z","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Prisons are well understood to be hotspots of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, little is known about the impacts the COVID-19 pandemic has had on pregnant and postpartum people in prison. We conducted a secondary analysis of 63 semi-structured qualitative interviews (December 2021-May 2023) with subject matter experts, primarily perinatal program staff working in prisons, to better understand how perinatal support programs for people in prison were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Results: We identified nine themes in interviews as impacting perinatal support programming for incarcerated pregnant and postpartum people during the COVID-19 pandemic: 1) prison COVID-19 preventative practices and their influences on perinatal support programs; 2) COVID-19 quarantine and confinement of pregnant and postpartum people; 3) changes in the pregnant and postpartum population and reentry support; 4) changes to birth support during incarceration; 5) lack of communication and inconsistency between the DOC and perinatal support programs; 6) DOC staffing and staff turnover; 7) lack of access to volunteer-led programming and visiting; 8) relationships between perinatal support programs and DOC healthcare providers; and 9) relationships between perinatal support programs and hospitals. Results were organized into a modified socioecological model, allowing us to view different spheres of influence, how they interact and overlap, and as we describe in the discussion section, where practitioners and policy-makers might intervene. In particular, we focused on the organizational, relational, and structural levels, with multiple themes organized into each level. All of these themes, together, help provide information on how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted perinatal support programs in prisons.
Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic had drastic impacts on prison operations and perinatal support programs, with cascading influences on the health and wellbeing of pregnant and postpartum people who are incarcerated. We conclude with a series of recommendations, developed by the research team and a community research council of formerly incarcerated individuals, that aim to address pandemic-related health disparities and promote health equity among those disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
期刊介绍：
Health & Justice is open to submissions from public health, criminology and criminal justice, medical science, psychology and clinical sciences, sociology, neuroscience, biology, anthropology and the social sciences, and covers a broad array of research types. It publishes original research, research notes (promising issues that are smaller in scope), commentaries, and translational notes (possible ways of introducing innovations in the justice system). Health & Justice aims to: Present original experimental research on the area of health and well-being of people involved in the adult or juvenile justice system, including people who work in the system; Present meta-analysis or systematic reviews in the area of health and justice for those involved in the justice system; Provide an arena to present new and upcoming scientific issues; Present translational science—the movement of scientific findings into practice including programs, procedures, or strategies; Present implementation science findings to advance the uptake and use of evidence-based practices; and, Present protocols and clinical practice guidelines. As an open access journal, Health & Justice aims for a broad reach, including researchers across many disciplines as well as justice practitioners (e.g. judges, prosecutors, defenders, probation officers, treatment providers, mental health and medical personnel working with justice-involved individuals, etc.). The sections of the journal devoted to translational and implementation sciences are primarily geared to practitioners and justice actors with special attention to the techniques used.
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号
