The successful student(s) will work with their host to conduct a bespoke analysis on an interdisciplinary topic (justice and health) using data from the RELEASE study, contribute to a paper, and create an accessible results summary for communicating with interested stakeholders

Context

There are high levels of mental health and substance use problems among people in prison. People who have been in prison are more likely to die from substance use related causes or by suicide compared to the general population.  This suggests people who have been in prison may not be accessing the right mental health and substance use support early enough.

The RELEASE project aimed to understand patterns of healthcare use for mental health and substance use on release from prison. We created the RELEASE dataset, which is an extensive, high-quality secondary dataset, including linked health, prison, and deaths records for ~8000 people released from prison and a matched general population sample ~42000.

In the RELEASE study, we showed that people who had been in prison had contact much more often with emergency and unscheduled care services (A&E, Ambulance, NHS24, Out-of-hours GP) compared to similar people who have not been in prison.

Objectives

This academic placement will involve:

• identifying predictors of repeated contact with emergency and unscheduled care services for mental health and substance use-related presentations
• producing reproducible code to inform the methods section of the paper
• producing an accessible research summary to share with different audiences in the form of a briefing or infographic, with support from the mentors and access to existing templates and examples