Some U.S. states have higher vaccination rates inside prisons than outside.
A red tag on a cell door indicating an active Covid-19 case at Faribault Prison in Minnesota in January. Many U.S. jails and prisons have struggled with coronavirus outbreaks. Credit.Aaron Lavinsky/Star Tribune, via Associated Press
By Ann Hinga Klein
June 1, 2021, 5:01 a.m. ET
While most of the United States’ prison systems have struggled to vaccinate inmates, some, including California’s, have outperformed vaccination rates among the general public. And experts say their success may offer clues about how to persuade skeptical people outside correctional facilities to get vaccinated.
Barriers to quality health care in prisons
Brinkley-Rubinstein says these spikes in diagnoses in correctional facilities are also an indictment of the lack of access to health care in this country. For many incarcerated people, prison may be the first time in their lives they’ve received routine health screenings.
“When you look at neighborhoods that have disproportionate levels of incarceration, those are the same communities that have less infrastructure for transportation, that have less number of clinics, that have, you know, higher numbers of food deserts,” Brinkley-Rubinstein said. “So all these social determinants of health and access to health care put people at risk of having a higher burden of chronic illness.”