Incarceration affects an increasing number of women in the United States. For current and formerly incarcerated women (justice-involved women), incarceration has implications for health, particularly the reproductive health of women, long after incarceration is over. Currently, justice-involved women have a high cervical cancer burden relative to the general population, resulting in substantial disparities in incidence and outcomes. In this article, we review the surveillance, education, and resulting policy issues that contribute to incarceration being a determinant of cervical cancer disparities and present a potential model for continuity of care to reduce such inequity.
Keywords: cervical cancer; disparities; incarceration; justice-involved women; reproductive health.