This study was done as a systematic literature review to describe what is known about youths’ reproductive health needs during community reentry after incarceration.
Online platforms were searched for articles. In the search, we defined the concept of ‘reentry’ as within 1 month prior to release and up to 18 months after release from incarceration.
2187 articles were found in search. After applying all exclusion criteria, 14 articles on reproductive health remained after analysing the contents for inclusion criteria. The articles provided data on the following aspects of youths’ reproductive health: frequency of condom use, sexual risk behaviors other than lack of condom use, and prevalence of sexually transmitted infections.
The study concluded that the literature on the reproductive health needs of youth undergoing reentry is extremely limited. Current intervention studies yield mixed but promising results and more intervention studies that address both pre-release reentry planning and the post-incarceration period are needed. Given incarcerated youths’ well-documented reproductive health disparities compared with non-incarcerated adolescents, the identified gaps represent important opportunities for future research and programmatic emphasis.
Reference: https://srh.bmj.com/content/46/3/161
