Black men are half as likely to die in prison than if they aren’t, a recent study of North Carolina inmates suggests.
The black prisoners appeared to be especially protected against alcohol and drug-related deaths, as well as lethal accidents, chronic diseases and murder.
The pattern didn’t hold for white men, who on the whole were slightly more likely to die in prison than outside, according to findings published in Annuls of Epidemiology.
“Ironically, prisons are often the only provider of medical care accessible by these under served and vulnerable Americans,” said Hung-En Sung of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “Typically, prison-based care is more comprehensive than what inmates have received prior to their admission,” Sung told Reuters Health by e-mail.
The study involved 100,000 men between age 20 and 79, who were held in North Carolina prisons at some point between 1995 and 2005. Sixty percent of those were black.
Researchers determined which inmates died, and of what cause, in prison. They linked that data with state health records, then compared those figures with expected deaths in men of the same age and race outside of prisons.
The men that died during incarceration were less than one percent, and there was no difference between black and white inmates. The study found, however, that blacks have a higher rate of death at any given age than whites do outside of prison.
If these results can be accomplished in prisons, they should be accomplished in neighborhoods, Evelyn Patterson told Reuters Health. She studies correctional facilities at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., but wasn’t linked to the new study.
Cancer, heart and blood vessel diseases were the most common cause of death among inmates, accounting for more than half of the deaths. White prisoners died of cardiovascular diseases as often as expected and died of cancer slightly more often than non-prisoners.
Black inmates were between 30 and 40 percent less likely to die of those causes than those who weren’t incarcerated. They also were less likely than non-prisoners to die of respiratory diseases, diabetes, alcohol and drug-related causes, accidents, suicide and murder. Their risk of death at any age was only half that of men living in the community.
The death rate for white men was 12 percent higher than in the general population. Their higher death rate was attributed to HIV and hepatitis.
When the researchers separated prisoners by age, death rates were only higher for white prisoners age 50 and older.
“For some populations, being in prison likely provides benefits in regard to access to health care and life expectancy,” said study author Dr. David Rosen of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“It’s important to remember that there are many possible negative consequences of imprisonment—for example, broken relationships, loss of employment opportunities, and greater entrenchment in criminal activity—that are not reflected in our study findings, but nevertheless have an important influence on prisoners’ lives and their overall health, ” according to Rosen.
