Prison Health Care and Continuity of Care for HIV Prisoners on Release: A comparative literature review of the health systems in the UK and USA

Abstract

This systematic literature review investigates the contrast and comparison of the USA and UK health systems surrounding HIV, prison health care and continuity of care. Examining international governance policies from World Health Organisation and United Nations to establish expected standards gives a baseline to work from. Several searches were undertaken to extrapolate literature for "prison health" "HIV" "continuity of care" "Public health UK" "public health USA" with some combination of terms. The literature search revealed a dearth of information for UK versus a very large volume for USA, especially with regards to "HIV" and "continuity of care". This is reflected in this thesis. From the literature, there appears to be many similarities and several differences between the 2 systems which affect HIV prisoner care, but most poignantly revealed an enormous lack of substantiated research in the UK.