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Primary Submission Category: Methodological approaches to studying public health

“Our knowledge and expertise are invaluable”: Participatory Research with People Impacted by Incarceration

Authors:  Abaki Beck,

Presenting Author: Abaki Beck*

Incarceration is a well established social determinant of health, and people who experience incarceration have worse health before, during, and after prison than the general population. Yet research on the health experiences and health outcomes of currently and formerly incarcerated people frequently excludes their voices and expertise. Our research team has been engaging with directly impacted community members in our work at the intersection of public health and legal system involvement for well over a decade. This presentation will provide concrete lessons learned from our community-engaged work, exploring questions like: How can we ethically engage formerly incarcerated people in data collection and analysis, particularly in a prison setting (e.g., if returning to a prison or interacting with prison staff is traumatizing)? How do we properly compensate community members, especially if there are limitations (e.g., they are currently incarcerated and cannot be paid per prison policy)? How can we convene a group of people with lived experience to guide our research with shared power and mutual benefit?

In particular, this presentation will draw from examples from our ongoing partnership with a Community Research Council of formerly incarcerated people who gave birth or were postpartum while incarcerated, who support multiple projects related to pregnancy and incarceration. One of the outcomes of this collaboration was the development of a resource guide and training with lessons learned and practical examples for how researchers can engage people impacted by incarceration in health research, from grant applications to data collection to dissemination of findings.

Through this presentation, participants will learn about the unique, systemic challenges to engaging people impacted by incarceration in health research, creative ways to overcome these barriers, and learn concrete examples from our work with people who experienced pregnancy in prison.