Kaitlyn M. Sims, Jeremy Foltz, and Marin Elisabeth Skidmore are with the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Marin Elisabeth Skidmore is also with the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Am J Public Health. 2021 Aug;111(8):1534-1541. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2021.306352. Epub 2021 Jul 14.
To empirically evaluate the relationship between presence of a state or federal prison and COVID-19 case and death counts. We merged data on locations of federal and state prisons and of local and county jails with daily case and death counts in the United States. We used a selection-on-observables design to estimate the correlation between prisons and COVID-19 spread, controlling for known correlates of COVID-19. We found empirical evidence that the presence and capacities of prisons are strong correlates of county-level COVID-19 case counts. The presence of a state or federal prison in a county corresponded with a 9% increase in the COVID-19 case count during the first wave of the pandemic, ending July 1, 2020. Our results suggest that the public health implications of these facilities extend beyond the health of employees and incarcerated individuals, and policymakers should explicitly consider the public health concerns posed by these facilities when developing pandemic-response policy.
为了从实证角度评估州立或联邦监狱的存在与新冠病毒病例和死亡人数之间的关系。我们将美国联邦和州立监狱以及地方和县级监狱的位置数据与新冠病毒病例和死亡人数的每日数据进行了合并。我们采用观测变量选择设计，根据新冠病毒的已知相关因素，来估计监狱与新冠病毒传播之间的相关性。我们发现实证证据表明，监狱的存在和容纳能力与县级新冠病毒病例数密切相关。在 2020 年 7 月 1 日第一波大流行结束时，一个县有州立或联邦监狱的存在，该县的新冠病毒病例数增加了 9%。我们的研究结果表明，这些设施对公共卫生的影响超出了员工和被监禁人员的健康范围，政策制定者在制定大流行应对政策时应明确考虑这些设施所带来的公共卫生问题。
