Self-Reported Health Among Recently Incarcerated Mothers

Objectives. We examined self-reported health among formerly incarcerated mothers.Methods. We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n = 4096), a longitudinal survey of mostly unmarried parents in urban areas, to estimate the association between recent incarceration (measured as any incarceration in the past 4 years) and 5 self-reported health conditions (depression, illicit drug use, heavy drinking, fair or poor health, and health limitations), net of covariates including health before incarceration.Results. In adjusted logistic regression models, recently incarcerated mothers, compared with their counterparts, have an increased likelihood of depression (odds ratio OR] = 1.60; 95% confidence interval CI] = 1.18, 2.17), heavy drinking (OR = 1.79; 95% CI = 1.19, 2.68), fair or poor health (OR = 1.49; 95% CI = 1.08, 2.06), and health limitations (OR = 1.78; 95% CI = 1.27, 2.50). This association is similar across racial/ethnic subgroups and is larger among mothers who share children with fathers who have not been recently incarcerated.Conclusions. Recently incarcerated mothers struggle with even more health conditions than expected given the disadvantages they experience before incarceration. Furthermore, because incarceration is concentrated among those who are most disadvantaged, incarceration may increase inequalities in population health.The US incarceration rate, though recently stabilized, has increased rapidly over the past 4 decades. Accordingly, researchers have become acutely aware of the sheer number of individuals who experience incarceration and the vulnerabilities these individuals face before, during, and after incarceration.1 In particular, a growing literature has documented the consequences of mass incarceration, defined as the historically and comparatively extreme rates of incarceration in the United States, for population health.2–5 Formerly incarcerated individuals, compared with their counterparts, have elevated rates of mortality,6 infectious diseases,7 cardiovascular diseases,8 and disability,9 as well as an array of mental health problems including depression,10 anxiety,9 and life dissatisfaction.11Despite the fact that, since the early 1980s, women’s incarceration rates have increased faster than men’s incarceration rates,12,13 very little research has explicitly considered the health of formerly incarcerated women. Instead, research on incarcerated women often focuses on the consequences of incarceration for their families and children.14–19 The dearth of research on formerly incarcerated women’s health is an important oversight because these women are an extremely vulnerable population and present a pressing public health concern. Formerly incarcerated mothers are an especially important group because poor physical and mental health among mothers may have deleterious consequences for their children.20–23We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal study of mostly unmarried parents living in urban areas, to provide the first examination of the relationship between recent incarceration, measured as any incarceration experience in the past 4 years, and 5 self-reported health conditions among mothers: depression, illicit drug use, heavy drinking, fair or poor health, and health limitations. First, we estimated the association between recent incarceration and self-reported health. We then estimated this association by race/ethnicity and by romantic partner’s incarceration history. Our analyses adjusted for a large number of individual characteristics that may render the association between recent incarceration and health conditions spurious (including health before incarceration). Adjusting for these characteristics is especially important because incarcerated mothers are at risk for poor physical and mental health before incarceration.5,24–26