Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41273663›Full record

ArticleHealth & justice2025

Evaluating the association of transferring governance of correctional health care services with overdose and all-cause mortality: a retrospective cohort study in British Columbia, Canada.

Lisa McQuarrie, Dibbya Pravas Dasgupta, Tonia Nicholls, Ruth Elwood Martin, Katherine E McLeod, Stuart Kinner, Leigh Greiner, Maureen Olley, Kate Roth, Heather Palis and 2 more

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Article in Health & justice, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

12 authors.

Lisa McQuarrieSchool of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Dibbya Pravas DasguptaSchool of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Tonia NichollsDepartment of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Ruth Elwood MartinSchool of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Katherine E McLeodDepartment of Family Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Stuart KinnerJustice Health Group, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia.
Leigh GreinerBC Corrections, Ministry of Public Safety and the Solicitor General, Province of British Columbia, Victoria, BC, Canada.
Maureen OlleyBC Corrections, Ministry of Public Safety and the Solicitor General, Province of British Columbia, Victoria, BC, Canada.
Kate RothSchool of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Heather PalisSchool of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Ashok KrishnamoorthyDepartment of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Amanda SlaunwhiteSchool of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Amanda.Slaunwhite@ubc.ca.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundIn many jurisdictions world-wide, the government agency that manages prisons also provides prison health care services. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations (UN) have recommended that health ministries provide prison health care. In Canada, the province of British Columbia (BC) transferred responsibility for correctional health services to the health ministry in accordance with this guidance. The objective of this study was to estimate the association between the transfer in BC and all-cause and overdose mortality within 1 year of release from prison.

methodsWe used a retrospective cohort study design employing the difference-in-differences (DiD) method to compare mortality among formerly-incarcerated people in the pre- and post-transfer periods against a matched community control group to control for province-wide trends in mortality. The data source was a longitudinal linkage of administrative databases. The DiD effect was estimated with survival time-to-event models.

resultsIn the formerly-incarcerated group (N = 6912), all-cause (3.7% vs 2.6%) and overdose (2.7% vs 1.7%) mortality in the first-year post-release decreased from the pre-transfer period to the post-transfer period, while mortality risk changed little in the community control group (N = 6881) during this time period (all-cause: 0.7% vs 0.9%; overdose: 0.4% vs 0.4%). The transfer was associated with statistically significant reductions in the hazards of all-cause mortality (DiD HR: 0.52, 95% CI: [0.32, 0.83]) and overdose mortality (DiD HR: 0.51, 95% CI: [0.26, 0.99]) in the first-year post-release.

conclusionsThis study provides empirical evidence in support of WHO and UN guidance and indicates that the delivery of correctional health services by community health authorities may reduce deaths, particularly overdose deaths, among people released from correctional centres.

Indexed as

Administrative health dataCorrectional health servicesDifference-in-differencesHealth care governanceIncarcerationMortalityOverdose deathPrison health

Identifiers

PMID41273663
PMCPMC12809955

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.