Managing technology, content, and user experience: an mHealth intervention to improve women’s health literacy after incarceration
Open accessAbstract
Every year, more than 3.2 million women come into contact with the criminal legal system in the United States. 1 Representing the fastest-growing incarcerated group, women with criminal legal histories are more likely to report chronic conditions, such as cancer, hypertension, heart disease, and diabetes.2 Around 67% of females in jails reported ever having a chronic condition.3 On top of these health issues, many women are affected by sexual trauma, poverty, drug addition, mental illness, and limited access to medical care.4 The majority of incarcerated women are between the ages of 18 and 44. 1 Women with incarceration histories bear a greater burden of sexual and reproductive health problems such as abnormal Pap test histories, cervical cancer, unintended pregnancies, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).1,5,6 In addition, there is a growing number of women in jails and prisons who are 55 and older, a group of women who have lower rates of up-to-date mammograms compared with the general population.7,8 When released from jail, women must face these and other health and social problems as they reorient themselves back into the community.9,10 Community reentry presents an opportune moment for health intervention in that it gets women to think about changing circumstances at a high-risk time 11 and may provide women with resources to see those changes through.Researchers have found that women with past criminal legal histories are often savvy health care users, though woefully underinsured in some regions of the U.S. 12 Although most incarcerated women are knowledgeable about behavioral health issues to some extent, many have beliefs about women's health that are outdated, often affected by family, medical, or social beliefs about screening regimens, or in some cases their own trauma histories.13 These women also have multiple barriers to following through on recommended screening and prevention-specifically, their own
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Vulnerable populations, including those with lower health literacy, limited digital skills or language barriers, may face additional challenges in navigating and utilising digital health resources.
“Vulnerable populations, including those with lower health literacy, limited digital skills or language barriers, may face additional challenges in navigating and utilising digital health resources (61, 72, 73).”
From Improving health literacy using the power of digital communications to achieve better health outcomes for patients and practitioners. (2023) · cites this paper as [73]
Technology cannot compensate for content that is not engaging, easy to consume and appropriate for the audience.
“It is also important to note that while technology is a very useful tool it cannot compensate for content that is not engaging, easy to consume and appropriate for the audience (73, 111).”
From Improving health literacy using the power of digital communications to achieve better health outcomes for patients and practitioners. (2023) · cites this paper as [73]
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- Authors
- Geana, M. V., Anderson, S., Lipnicky, A., Wickliffe, J. L., & Ramaswamy, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Kansas (US)
- Corresponding author
- Geana, Mugur V.
- Venue
- Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved
- Publisher
- Project MUSE
- Published
- 2021
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 2S
- Pages
- 106-127
- ISSN
- 1049-2089 (ISSN-L)
- 1548-6869
- PMC
- PMC10275613
- OpenAlex
- W3157551187
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2
- FWCI
- 2.53
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Cancer Institute (R01CA181047)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Literacy and Information Accessibility
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
- Keywords
- mobile health intervention, health literacy, women prisoners, women's reentry, post-release care, sexual and reproductive health, cancer screening, mammography, cervical cancer screening, sexually transmitted infections, chronic disease, health beliefs, barriers to screening
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