Megan Comfort
Biographic Data
| ID | 191079 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Megan Comfort |
| GIVEN NAMES | Megan |
| FAMILY NAME | Comfort |
| SIGNATURE | COMFORT M |
| AFFILIATIONS | RTI International |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 213 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 30 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
“My Dream Would Be Shut Down
This study examines how social and family environments shape the future orientation and aspirations of adolescents (ages 13–15) in an agricultural, predominantly Latine community in California. We analyzed data from 80 in-depth interviews conducted with 40 participants over two years as part of the A Crecer study. We found that while youth recognized how financial hardship and anti-immigrant policies could hinder their goals, they also drew stren…
Examining pathways by which socioeconomic instability in adolescence influence sexual health during emerging adulthood in an agricultural setting in California
This study investigates the longitudinal impact of socioeconomic instability on teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection (STI) diagnosis among adolescents and young adults (AYA) living in an agricultural region and examines pathways including supportive family and social structures, decision making autonomy in romantic relationships, health access, mental health and coping behaviors, and perceptions of future opportunities. Data were dra…
Jurisdictional Resource Factors Influencing Adoption and Implementation of the Public Safety Assessment During Pretrial
Criminal legal systems are increasingly adopting actuarial pretrial assessments which use statistical formulas to estimate individuals’ probability of adhering to pretrial requirements and guide the conditions of their supervision. A large gap in the study of pretrial assessments is due to inattention to implementation of these assessments in real-world settings. We conducted qualitative research examining personnel and data resource factors that…
Labeling in a California Latinx community
Targeted interventions that foster social belonging and connection rather than exclusion may facilitate health protective behaviors and have positive implications for future trajectories among youth
Creating “Safer Ground”
Our findings highlight that when key elements such as cross-sector collaboration, engaged leadership, and flexible funding align, significant progress can be made in providing housing and integrated medical, behavioral, and social services for PEH with complex needs
There is a common thread
Where’s the Bias
Pretrial assessments are criticized for inherent biases. We conduct research in Kentucky to assess the predictive validity and differential prediction by sex of one pretrial assessment, the Public Safety Assessment (PSA). Our research is unique because we find equal base rates by sex for missing a court date, which allows us to assess for error rate balance by sex. We find the PSA to have predictive validity within acceptable ranges for the crimi…
Cervical cancer screening barriers and facilitators from the perspectives of women with a history of criminal-legal system involvement and substance use
Latina mothers’ perspectives on adverse experiences and protection of Latinx youth in an agricultural community
Latina mothers shared the impacts of immigrant-related experiences on systemic inequities in the United States which are currently missing from the ACEs framework. Immigrant specific adverse events include language-limited accessibility, or family-child separations, and policies impacting structural resources for immigrant families. Mothers highlighted their capacity to build resilience in their children and buffer impacts of systemic racism. Com…
Latinx Adolescent Perspectives on the Effects of United States Immigration Policy on Wellbeing
In a prospective cohort study of Latinx adolescents living in an agricultural county in California, we examined perceptions of federal immigration policy and its effects on community and individual wellbeing. From May to December 2017, 565 youth responded to an open-ended item integrated into ongoing surveys. Median age was 14 (range 13-16 years), 53% female, and 94% Latinx. About 12% were immigrants, 71% children of immigrant parents, and 52% ha…
Health and Health Service Needs
Objectives: We profiled the health and health services needs of a sample of older adult women (age 50+) with criminal-legal system (CLS) involvement and compared them with younger women (age 18-49), also CLS-involved. Methods : Using survey data collected from January to June 2020 from adult women with CLS involvement in three US cities, we profiled and compared the older adult women with younger women on behavioral and structural risk factors, h…
Criminal Justice–Involved Women Navigate Covid-19
In March–April, 2020, we communicated with a cohort of criminal justice–involved (CJI) women to see how they were navigating COVID-19, chronic illness, homelessness, and shelter-in-place orders in Oakland, Birmingham, and Kansas City. We report on conversations with N = 35 women (out of the cohort of 474 women) and our own observations from ongoing criminal justice involvement studies. Women reported barriers to protecting themselves given widesp…
Holding On
Holding On reveals the results of an unprecedented ten-year study of justice-involved families, rendering visible the lives of a group of American families whose experiences are too often lost in large-scale demographic research. Using new data from the Multi-site Family Study on Incarceration, Parenting, and Partnering—a groundbreaking study of almost two thousand families, incorporating a series of couples-based surveys and qualitative intervie…
What Percentage of Americans Have Ever Had a Family Member Incarcerated
What percentage of Americans have ever had a family member incarcerated? To answer this question, we designed the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS). The survey was administered in the summer of 2018 by NORC at the University of Chicago using their AmeriSpeak Panel. It was funded by FWD.us, which released a separate report using the data. The data show that 45 percent of Americans have ever had an immediate family member incarcerated…
‘I’m the man and he’s the woman!’
This chapter discusses people’s accounts of the challenges they face when men return to the home from prison. These accounts highlight particular tensions related to shifting from a masculinity constructed in accordance with the punitive constraints and dictates of the penitentiary to one that must operate within the harsh social conditions of life for impoverished people in the ‘outside’ world. Paradoxically, although riddled with emotional dist…
Structural Vulnerability and Supplemental Security Income
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a United States federal welfare program examined here as emblematic of the sociostructural configurations of welfare-related deservingness and punitive governance within social welfare. We operationalize Quesada, Hart, and Bourgois' (2011) framework of structural vulnerability to ethnographically examine people's experience with applying for and receiving SSI in the context of a mixed-method intervention stud…
After Life Imprisonment
Public health and international drug policy
A Twenty-Hour-a-Day Job
In the growing field of research on the consequences of criminal justice contact for family life, a heavy emphasis has been placed on how imprisonment influences the emotional, physical, and socioeconomic well-being of prisoners' loved ones. In this article, I elaborate on and analyze the experiences of family members of people with frequent, low-level criminal justice involvement. I draw on ethnographic data collected in partnership with a clini…
A qualitative analysis of male couples' coping with HIV
Research suggests that optimal couple functioning depends on adopting a "we" orientation to health. Using qualitative data from 20 male couples in which at least one partner was HIV-positive, we examined how couples viewed their health involvement and its relation to social support. One group described their health as highly interconnected; in a second group, at least one partner viewed health as a personal responsibility. Results revealed that t…
Single room occupancy (SRO) hotels as mental health risk environments among impoverished women
The phenomenon of low-frequency heroin injection among street-based urban poor
La famille à l’épreuve de la prison, C. Touraut
Dans son premier livre, Caroline Touraut invite ses lecteurs dans une « zone d’ombre persistante à la périphérie des institutions carcérales » (p. 3) pour y découvrir les émotions, expériences, et raisonnements des familles des détenus. Son enquête est basée sur plus de deux ans de travail de terrain en France pendant lesquels elle a effectué des observations aux parloirs de trois établissements pénitentiaires, devant deux maisons d’arrêt et une …
Discrimination based on criminal record and healthcare utilization among men recently released from prison
Recently released prisoners report criminal record discrimination by healthcare workers, and this experience may impact healthcare utilization. Future studies should seek to further characterize criminal record discrimination by healthcare workers and prospectively examine its impact on health outcomes
Consequences of Family Member Incarceration
Political participation and citizens' perceptions of the legitimacy and fairness of government are central components of democracy. In this article, we examine one possible threat to these markers of a just political system: family member incarceration. We offer a unique glimpse into the broader social consequences of punishment that are brought on by a partner's or parent's incarceration. We argue that the criminal justice system serves as an im…
What Percentage of Americans Have Ever Had a Family Member Incarcerated
What percentage of Americans have ever had a family member incarcerated? To answer this question, we designed the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS). The survey was administered in the summer of 2018 by NORC at the University of Chicago using their AmeriSpeak Panel. It was funded by FWD.us, which released a separate report using the data. The data show that 45 percent of Americans have ever had an immediate family member incarcerated…
Consequences of Family Member Incarceration
Political participation and citizens' perceptions of the legitimacy and fairness of government are central components of democracy. In this article, we examine one possible threat to these markers of a just political system: family member incarceration. We offer a unique glimpse into the broader social consequences of punishment that are brought on by a partner's or parent's incarceration. We argue that the criminal justice system serves as an im…
A Twenty-Hour-a-Day Job
In the growing field of research on the consequences of criminal justice contact for family life, a heavy emphasis has been placed on how imprisonment influences the emotional, physical, and socioeconomic well-being of prisoners' loved ones. In this article, I elaborate on and analyze the experiences of family members of people with frequent, low-level criminal justice involvement. I draw on ethnographic data collected in partnership with a clini…
You can't do nothing in this damn place”
In an effort to deepen our understanding of how circumstances of forced separation and the interdiction of physical contact affect women's sexual behavior, we investigated the development and maintenance of heterosexual couples' intimacy when the male partner is incarcerated. As HIV-prevention scientists who work with women visiting men at a California state prison, we recognize that correctional control extends to these women's bodies, both when…
Discrimination and Psychological Distress Among Recently Released Male Prisoners
Though theoretical perspectives suggest experiences of stigma and discrimination after release may be one pathway through which incarceration leads to poor mental health, little research considers the relationship between discrimination and mental health among former inmates. In this article, data from a sample of men recently released from prison to Oakland or San Francisco, California (N = 172), are used to consider how criminal record discrimi…
Discrimination based on criminal record and healthcare utilization among men recently released from prison
Recently released prisoners report criminal record discrimination by healthcare workers, and this experience may impact healthcare utilization. Future studies should seek to further characterize criminal record discrimination by healthcare workers and prospectively examine its impact on health outcomes
C'est plein de mecs bien en taule
Ces dernières années ont vu l'émergence d'une discussion des « effets sociaux » - ou des « conséquences collatérales » - du modèle américain d'emprisonnement de masse sur la société et sur la vie familiale. Les chercheurs tendent à considérer que la condamnation à la réclusion est la force déstabilisatrice qui provoque la perte d'emploi, la désintégration de la cellule familiale, l'ostracisme social, etc. Une analyse des relations amoureuses qu'e…
A qualitative analysis of male couples' coping with HIV
Research suggests that optimal couple functioning depends on adopting a "we" orientation to health. Using qualitative data from 20 male couples in which at least one partner was HIV-positive, we examined how couples viewed their health involvement and its relation to social support. One group described their health as highly interconnected; in a second group, at least one partner viewed health as a personal responsibility. Results revealed that t…
Latinx Adolescent Perspectives on the Effects of United States Immigration Policy on Wellbeing
In a prospective cohort study of Latinx adolescents living in an agricultural county in California, we examined perceptions of federal immigration policy and its effects on community and individual wellbeing. From May to December 2017, 565 youth responded to an open-ended item integrated into ongoing surveys. Median age was 14 (range 13-16 years), 53% female, and 94% Latinx. About 12% were immigrants, 71% children of immigrant parents, and 52% ha…
Health and Health Service Needs
Objectives: We profiled the health and health services needs of a sample of older adult women (age 50+) with criminal-legal system (CLS) involvement and compared them with younger women (age 18-49), also CLS-involved. Methods : Using survey data collected from January to June 2020 from adult women with CLS involvement in three US cities, we profiled and compared the older adult women with younger women on behavioral and structural risk factors, h…
You can't do nothing in this damn place”
In an effort to deepen our understanding of how circumstances of forced separation and the interdiction of physical contact affect women's sexual behavior, we investigated the development and maintenance of heterosexual couples' intimacy when the male partner is incarcerated. As HIV-prevention scientists who work with women visiting men at a California state prison, we recognize that correctional control extends to these women's bodies, both when…
C'est plein de mecs bien en taule
Ces dernières années ont vu l'émergence d'une discussion des « effets sociaux » - ou des « conséquences collatérales » - du modèle américain d'emprisonnement de masse sur la société et sur la vie familiale. Les chercheurs tendent à considérer que la condamnation à la réclusion est la force déstabilisatrice qui provoque la perte d'emploi, la désintégration de la cellule familiale, l'ostracisme social, etc. Une analyse des relations amoureuses qu'e…
Doing Time Together
Stigma and HIV risk among Metis in Nepal
Similar to other parts of Asia, the HIV epidemic in Nepal is concentrated among a small number of groups, including transgender people, or Metis. This study was conducted to explore the social context of stigma among Metis in Nepal to better understand their risk for HIV. Fourteen in-depth interviews were conducted with Metis in Kathmandu, Nepal. We found that stigma from families leading to rural-urban migration exposed Metis to discrimination f…
Discrimination and Psychological Distress Among Recently Released Male Prisoners
Though theoretical perspectives suggest experiences of stigma and discrimination after release may be one pathway through which incarceration leads to poor mental health, little research considers the relationship between discrimination and mental health among former inmates. In this article, data from a sample of men recently released from prison to Oakland or San Francisco, California (N = 172), are used to consider how criminal record discrimi…
Single room occupancy (SRO) hotels as mental health risk environments among impoverished women
The phenomenon of low-frequency heroin injection among street-based urban poor
La famille à l’épreuve de la prison, C. Touraut
Dans son premier livre, Caroline Touraut invite ses lecteurs dans une « zone d’ombre persistante à la périphérie des institutions carcérales » (p. 3) pour y découvrir les émotions, expériences, et raisonnements des familles des détenus. Son enquête est basée sur plus de deux ans de travail de terrain en France pendant lesquels elle a effectué des observations aux parloirs de trois établissements pénitentiaires, devant deux maisons d’arrêt et une …
Discrimination based on criminal record and healthcare utilization among men recently released from prison
Recently released prisoners report criminal record discrimination by healthcare workers, and this experience may impact healthcare utilization. Future studies should seek to further characterize criminal record discrimination by healthcare workers and prospectively examine its impact on health outcomes
Consequences of Family Member Incarceration
Political participation and citizens' perceptions of the legitimacy and fairness of government are central components of democracy. In this article, we examine one possible threat to these markers of a just political system: family member incarceration. We offer a unique glimpse into the broader social consequences of punishment that are brought on by a partner's or parent's incarceration. We argue that the criminal justice system serves as an im…
Public health and international drug policy
A Twenty-Hour-a-Day Job
In the growing field of research on the consequences of criminal justice contact for family life, a heavy emphasis has been placed on how imprisonment influences the emotional, physical, and socioeconomic well-being of prisoners' loved ones. In this article, I elaborate on and analyze the experiences of family members of people with frequent, low-level criminal justice involvement. I draw on ethnographic data collected in partnership with a clini…
A qualitative analysis of male couples' coping with HIV
Research suggests that optimal couple functioning depends on adopting a "we" orientation to health. Using qualitative data from 20 male couples in which at least one partner was HIV-positive, we examined how couples viewed their health involvement and its relation to social support. One group described their health as highly interconnected; in a second group, at least one partner viewed health as a personal responsibility. Results revealed that t…
‘I’m the man and he’s the woman!’
This chapter discusses people’s accounts of the challenges they face when men return to the home from prison. These accounts highlight particular tensions related to shifting from a masculinity constructed in accordance with the punitive constraints and dictates of the penitentiary to one that must operate within the harsh social conditions of life for impoverished people in the ‘outside’ world. Paradoxically, although riddled with emotional dist…
Structural Vulnerability and Supplemental Security Income
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a United States federal welfare program examined here as emblematic of the sociostructural configurations of welfare-related deservingness and punitive governance within social welfare. We operationalize Quesada, Hart, and Bourgois' (2011) framework of structural vulnerability to ethnographically examine people's experience with applying for and receiving SSI in the context of a mixed-method intervention stud…
After Life Imprisonment
Holding On
Holding On reveals the results of an unprecedented ten-year study of justice-involved families, rendering visible the lives of a group of American families whose experiences are too often lost in large-scale demographic research. Using new data from the Multi-site Family Study on Incarceration, Parenting, and Partnering—a groundbreaking study of almost two thousand families, incorporating a series of couples-based surveys and qualitative intervie…
What Percentage of Americans Have Ever Had a Family Member Incarcerated
What percentage of Americans have ever had a family member incarcerated? To answer this question, we designed the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS). The survey was administered in the summer of 2018 by NORC at the University of Chicago using their AmeriSpeak Panel. It was funded by FWD.us, which released a separate report using the data. The data show that 45 percent of Americans have ever had an immediate family member incarcerated…
Criminal Justice–Involved Women Navigate Covid-19
In March–April, 2020, we communicated with a cohort of criminal justice–involved (CJI) women to see how they were navigating COVID-19, chronic illness, homelessness, and shelter-in-place orders in Oakland, Birmingham, and Kansas City. We report on conversations with N = 35 women (out of the cohort of 474 women) and our own observations from ongoing criminal justice involvement studies. Women reported barriers to protecting themselves given widesp…
Health and Health Service Needs
Objectives: We profiled the health and health services needs of a sample of older adult women (age 50+) with criminal-legal system (CLS) involvement and compared them with younger women (age 18-49), also CLS-involved. Methods : Using survey data collected from January to June 2020 from adult women with CLS involvement in three US cities, we profiled and compared the older adult women with younger women on behavioral and structural risk factors, h…
Latina mothers’ perspectives on adverse experiences and protection of Latinx youth in an agricultural community
Latina mothers shared the impacts of immigrant-related experiences on systemic inequities in the United States which are currently missing from the ACEs framework. Immigrant specific adverse events include language-limited accessibility, or family-child separations, and policies impacting structural resources for immigrant families. Mothers highlighted their capacity to build resilience in their children and buffer impacts of systemic racism. Com…
Latinx Adolescent Perspectives on the Effects of United States Immigration Policy on Wellbeing
In a prospective cohort study of Latinx adolescents living in an agricultural county in California, we examined perceptions of federal immigration policy and its effects on community and individual wellbeing. From May to December 2017, 565 youth responded to an open-ended item integrated into ongoing surveys. Median age was 14 (range 13-16 years), 53% female, and 94% Latinx. About 12% were immigrants, 71% children of immigrant parents, and 52% ha…
Where’s the Bias
Pretrial assessments are criticized for inherent biases. We conduct research in Kentucky to assess the predictive validity and differential prediction by sex of one pretrial assessment, the Public Safety Assessment (PSA). Our research is unique because we find equal base rates by sex for missing a court date, which allows us to assess for error rate balance by sex. We find the PSA to have predictive validity within acceptable ranges for the crimi…
Cervical cancer screening barriers and facilitators from the perspectives of women with a history of criminal-legal system involvement and substance use
Jurisdictional Resource Factors Influencing Adoption and Implementation of the Public Safety Assessment During Pretrial
Criminal legal systems are increasingly adopting actuarial pretrial assessments which use statistical formulas to estimate individuals’ probability of adhering to pretrial requirements and guide the conditions of their supervision. A large gap in the study of pretrial assessments is due to inattention to implementation of these assessments in real-world settings. We conducted qualitative research examining personnel and data resource factors that…
Psychology (16 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (15 works) · Political science (15 works) · Medicine (14 works) · Psychiatry (10 works) · Criminology (9 works) · Public health (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (7 works) · Law (6 works)