Overcoming Institutional, Scientific, and Cross-disciplinary Barriers for Healthcare and Disease Transmission Research in County Jail Settings

More than 20 million Americans are currently or have been previously incarcerated and 12 million cycle in and out of the criminal justice system each year. Despite the importance of the jail populations, there are a number of barriers to conducting research in this setting. Challenges in recruiting jail inmates without undue coercion while ensuring proper consent are significant. Even simple things like participant compensation are complicated in an environment when participants do not have direct access to cash or choices for places to spend it. Finally, simply carrying out surveys and biological specimen collection is complicated by the requirement of not introducing contraband into a controlled jail environment. Over the last two years, we have designed and carried out a study within a county detention facility in Arizona. We have successfully enrolled, surveyed, and collected bio-specimens from 200 currently incarcerated individuals, facing and resolving the challenges outlined above. Our solutions to these can be of great benefit to other researchers attempting cross-disciplinary analyses in jail settings

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