Ongoing research projects aim to better describe and understand the health status of people living in detention, improve their access to health care and preventive measures, reduce health inequalities, and promote reintegration into society.
The research areas of the service focus on the essential ethical and humanitarian aspects of prison health: independence, confidentiality, and equivalence of health care. They concern adults in pre-and post-trial detention, adolescents placed in secure custody, and persons in administrative detention.
Projects under development aim to achieve equitable access to health care and treatment and to implement optimal screening strategies for somatic diseases (hepatitis B, hepatitis C, HIV), psychiatric disorders (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), and substance use, usually over-represented in the prison population. Other projects aim to improve the quality of health interventions in prisons (smoking cessation, meditation, drug distribution, needle exchange program).
Another key area of research is the effects of incarceration on the health and mental health of people living in detention, in order to identify factors that aggravate the problems of this already vulnerable population, develop ways to improve and rethink detention.