The role of the community health delivery system in the health and well-being of justice-involved women: a narrative review

BACKGROUND: Over seven million imprisoned and jailed women are released into the community each year and many are ill-equipped to meet the challenges of re-integration. Upon release into their community, women are faced with uncertain barriers and challenges using community services to improve their health and well-being and reuniting with families. Few studies have identified and described the barriers of the community health delivery system (CHDS)- a complex set of social, justice, and healthcare organizations that provide community services aimed to improve the health and well-being (i.e. safety, health, the success of integration, and life satisfaction) of justice-involved women. We conducted a narrative review of peer-reviewed and gray literature to identify and describe the CHDS and the CHDS service delivery. RESULTS: Peer-reviewed and gray literature (n = 82) describing the CHDS organizations’ missions, incentives, goals, and services were coded in three domains, justice, social, and healthcare, to examine their service delivery to justice-involved women and their efforts to improve the health and well-being of justice-involved women. CONCLUSIONS: We found that the CHDS is fragmented, identified gaps in knowledge about the CHDS that serves justice-involved women, and offer recommendations to reduce fragmentation and integrate service delivery aimed to improve the health and well-being of justice-involved women.