Prescribed contraceptives among woman after release from prison

Background: Despite the high rates of unintended and complicated pregnancy among women who have spent time in prison, little is known about their use of prescribed contraceptives post-prison release. We used a routinely-collected medicine utilisation dataset linked to a longitudinal cohort of adults released from prison to describe the dispensing of contraceptive medication. Findings: The socio-demographic profiles of women in the cohort were characteristic of justice-involved populations: they were young, poorly educated, unemployed prior to incarceration, with a very high proportion identifying as Indigenous. Dispensing claims data showed that in the six months (180 days) after release from prison contraceptive medication had been dispensed to only 19 women (7.6%). Conclusion: Our findings raise important questions about the reproductive health needs of women in prison and after their release. This requires urgent research and policy attention with a particular focus on the potential benefits of attending to women’s sexual and reproductive health care needs in prison in preparation for return to the community.