Grant: Applied Public Health Chair - LOI

Canadians who are incarcerated or are at risk of incarceration (both youth and adults) have multiple health needs, fueled by personal experiences of poverty, violence, trauma, addiction and mental illness. Health problems, such as mental illness and addictions, can thrust people into contact with the police and other aspects of the criminal justice system (CJS). Effective health interventions for those at risk of CJS involvement and those already in the system must result from joint collaborations between the health system and non-health infrastructure and services (e.g., correctional, housing) since the social determinants of poor health are often the same determinants of imprisonment (e.g., poverty, unemployment, early school leaving/low-literacy, homelessness/under-housed). This Chair in Applied Public Health entitled, Interventions to Improve Health among Canadian Prisoners, will uniquely bring together leading experts, robust scientific evidence and effective integration of knowledge translation strategies to improve the health of prisoners and those at risk of entering or re-entering the penal system. The objectives of the Chair program are to: 1) identify specific health interventions that will benefit this vulnerable population, 2) work with key partners in both health and non-health sectors to implement promising interventions, and 3) train a new generation of researchers in best practice for intersectoral partnership development and improve their knowledge of the social determinants of health and criminal involvement. The end-goal of the Chair is to reduce health problems among those at risk of CJS involvement, those incarcerated and those at risk of re-incarceration. Reducing health problems may have the added benefit of keeping at risk people from going to jail or re-entering jail after release.