HIV Infection among New York State Female Inmates: Preliminary Results of a Voluntary Counseling and Testing Program

Abstract

New York State's prison population has the highest seroprevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among incarcerated populations in the United States. Five percent of the State prison inmate population is female. To date there have been few studies of incarcerated females in New York State (NYS). Seroprevalence rates have ranged from 18.9% to as high as 29%. In 1991, counselors from the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) AIDS Institute's Criminal Justice Initiative, in collaboration with the State's Department of Correctional Services (NYSDOCS), began to offer educational services and anonymous pretest counseling, HIV antibody testing, and posttest counseling to NYS female prisoners. With preliminary program testing data (N = 216) descriptive and multivariate techniques are used to evaluate the demographic and risk-related behaviors associated with HIV infection among female inmates in this voluntary HIV testing program. Results are discussed in light of previous research findings regarding the correlates of HIV seropositivity among New York State prison inmates and compared to previous blinded epidemiological studies of female inmates in the State. Future research, addressing the limitations of this preliminary study, is proposed.

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