BACKGROUND In 2004, the Irish Government introduced national legislation banning smoking in workplaces; with exemptions for "a place of residence". This paper summarises three Irish studies of exempted premises; prisons, psychiatric hospitals and nursing homes. METHODS PM(2.5) and nicotine were measured in nursing homes and psychiatric hospitals, in addition to ultrafine particles in the hosp...

OBJECTIVES People who inject drugs (PWID) are at high risk for acquiring hepatitis C virus (HCV), but many are unaware of their infection. HCV dried blood spot (DBS) testing increases case-finding in addiction services and prisons. We determine the cost-effectiveness of increasing HCV case-finding among PWID by offering DBS testing in specialist addiction services or prisons as compared to usin...

Key points • Estimates suggest that half the prisoners in the EU have a history of drug use, many with problematic injecting drug use. • Drug use is one of the main problems facing prison systems. It threatens security, dominates relationships between prisoners and staff and leads to violence, bullying and mobbing for both prisoners and often their spouses and friends in the community. • The pr...

INTRODUCTION Prison settings have been often identified as important but neglected reservoirs for TB. This study was designed to determine the prevalence of undiagnosed pulmonary TB and assess the potential risk factors for such TB cases in prisons of the Tigray region. METHOD A cross-sectional study was conducted between August 2013 and February 2014 in nine prisons. A standardized symptom-b...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis C virus infection (HCV) has a significant global health burden with an estimated 2%-3% of the world's population infected, and more than 350,000 dying annually from HCV-related conditions including liver failure and liver cancer. Prisons potentially offer a relatively stable environment in which to commence treatment as they usually provide good access to health care provid...

The high prevalence of HIV infection and drug dependence among prisoners, combined with the sharing of injecting drug equipment, make prisons a high-risk environment for the transmission of HIV. Ultimately, this contributes to HIV epidemics in the communities to which prisoners return on their release. We reviewed the effectiveness of interventions to reduce injecting drug use risk behaviours a...

BACKGROUND Rates of tuberculosis (TB) transmission in prisons are reported to be high worldwide. However, a recent systematic review identified only 19 published studies reporting TB incidence in prisons, most of them from the last century and only one from sub-Saharan Africa. OBJECTIVES To assess the persisting risk of smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) among prison populations bene...

BACKGROUND In 1999 I estimated the expected number of UK prison suicides, taking into account that opioid users' deaths from suicide were 10 times the number expected for their age and gender. Changes have since taken place in Scottish prisons. AIMS To estimate the expected number of male suicides in Scottish prisons in 1994-2003, having taken age and opioid dependency into account; and to co...

Around the world, HIV-prevalence rates among prisoners are high compared to the general population. This is due to overrepresentation of injecting drug users (IDUs) in prison and possible HIV-transmission inside prison. Limited health services in penitentiary institutes, stigma, policy issues, and budgetary constraints may hamper delivery of appropriate services for HIV in prison. Prisons may, ...