Research Highlights

H EALTH a n d
IN F R AS TR UC TUR E, S AF ETY, AN D EN V IR ONM E N T

Assessing Parolees’ Health Care Needs and Potential Access
to Health Care Services in California
RAND RESEARCH AREAS
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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
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TERRORISM AND
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TRANSPORTATION AND
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O

ver the past 20 years, the number of individuals released from California prisons
has increased nearly threefold, and most of
the state’s prisoners ultimately will return
to California communities, bringing with them
a variety of health and social needs that must be
addressed. This raises key public health challenges,
especially because ex-prisoners are returning to
communities whose safety nets are already severely
strained. To address these challenges, policymakers need to better understand the health care
needs of individuals returning from prisons and
the corresponding capacity of the health care safety
net in the communities to which they return.
This report addressed three research questions: (1) what are the health care needs of prisoners in California upon their release; (2) what
is the geographic distribution of state prisoners
who return to local communities in California;
and (3) what types of health care, mental health,
and substance abuse services are available in these
communities, and what is their capacity to meet
the needs of returning prisoners?
Health Care Needs Are High, but
Mental Health and Drug Treatment
Needs Are Even Higher

Using a state-level analysis of California data from
a national survey of state prison inmates, RAND
researchers found that such inmates bear a high
burden of chronic diseases, such as asthma and
hypertension, as well as infectious diseases, such as
hepatitis and tuberculosis—conditions that require
regular use of health care for effective management.
Among inmates who reported a current medical
issue, most reported seeing a physician since
admission to prison. However, according to the
literature on the subject, the likelihood of receiving
health care upon release seems low, given barriers
to accessing care and obtaining health insurance.
Thus, ex-prisoners returning to communities bring

Key findings:
• California inmates’ health care needs are
high; mental health and drug treatment
needs are even higher.
• Certain counties and communities in California
are disproportionately affected by reentry.
• Access to health care and mental health and
substance abuse safety nets varies across
California counties, within counties, and by
race/ethnicity.
• The mapping and accessibility measure
approach developed for this study can help
policymakers and practitioners understand
the public health implications of reentry and
best allocate resources and funding for this
population.

a host of unmet health needs and will depend on
counties’ abilities to meet those needs.
Drug treatment and mental health care needs
are even more pronounced. About two-thirds of
California inmates reported having a drug abuse
or dependence problem, but only 22 percent of
those inmates reported receiving treatment since
admission to prison. More than half of California
inmates reported a recent mental health problem, with about half of those reporting receiving
treatment in prison. Given the high prevalence
of these problems among the prison population,
parolees’ need for services in communities may
be particularly high.
Certain Counties and Communities Are
Disproportionately Affected by Reentry

The study relied on geocoded corrections data for
parolees released from California state prisons in

–2–

2005–2006 and cluster analysis to examine the geographic
distribution of parolees and to identify concentrations of
parolees across and within counties. The findings show that
certain counties have higher rates of return and that, within
counties, there are distinct clusters of parolees. This result
has implications in terms of targeting reentry resources to
these areas. Although the analysis showed concentrations
statewide, the study focused on four counties that received
one-third of the total parolees: Alameda, Kern, Los Angeles,
and San Diego.
In Alameda County, almost 45 percent of the returning
parolee population is concentrated in five distinct clusters,
primarily around Oakland and the northern section of the
county. In Kern County, there are four distinct clusters
of parolees, with concentrations around the urban area of
Bakersfield and two other areas in the northern and northeastern sections of the county; these clusters account for
almost 58 percent of parolees. In San Diego County, there
are eight clusters that account for nearly half the parolee
population, with the largest clusters in Downtown San Diego
and Southeast San Diego. Unlike in the other counties, Los
Angeles County has 23 distinct clusters of parolees covering
a large geographic area but accounting for only 35 percent of
the total county parolees. This dispersion suggests that providing services to the reentry population requires a targeted
approach within the various supervisorial districts and service
planning areas (SPAs).
Analysis also shows that, in California, African-American
and Latino parolees, in particular, tend to return to disadvantaged neighborhoods and communities, defined by high
poverty rates, high unemployment rates, and low educational
attainment.
Access to Safety-Net Resources Varies
Substantially

The study drew on facility data for hospitals, clinics, mental
health services, and substance abuse services to characterize
the respective safety nets that serve the uninsured and the
parolee population in the four chosen counties. The findings
show that parolees’ access to health care resources varies by
facility type (hospitals, clinics, mental health services, and
alcohol and drug treatment services), by geographic area
(across and within counties), and by race/ethnicity. One issue
that stands out in the three large urban counties—Alameda,
Los Angeles, and San Diego—is that most parolees reside in
areas with the lowest levels of accessibility to general acute
care hospitals, with Alameda County having the largest share
of parolees in areas with the lowest levels of accessibility. In
all the counties, community clinics appear to play an important role in filling gaps in coverage by medically indigent
service providers (MISPs) vis-à-vis the reentry population.

Still, the findings for all four counties reveal that some
important geographic gaps in access to health care resources
remain, given the distribution of parolees. Some of the most
prominent gaps appear in Los Angeles County (as shown in
the figure), where certain supervisorial districts with high
concentrations of parolees (shown in the darkest shade of
blue) have sparse hospital and clinic resources, including
MISP hospitals, other general acute care hospitals and other
public hospitals (shown as other hospitals), MISP clinics,
and other primary care and public-private partnership clinics
(shown as other clinics). The most striking gaps are in District 2, which covers the area called Southern Los Angeles
and includes Martin Luther King/Charles R. Drew Medical
Hospital (shown as the star), which closed in 2005.
To determine accessibility to health care resources, the
RAND researchers developed measures based on capacity,
demand, and distance. Capacity was measured by using fulltime equivalents (FTEs) for facilities, when available, and the
assessment of demand accounted for the fact that parolees are
not the only populations drawing on these facilities. Distance
was measured in terms of a 10-minute drive time to facilities,
assuming that this population would be less mobile and more
reliant on public transportation.
The table shows an example of hospital accessibility for
Los Angeles County. Overall, more than half of the parolees
reside in areas with either the lowest or mid-lowest levels of
accessibility to hospitals; there is also variation by parolees’
race/ethnicity. For example, in terms of accessibility to hospitals in Los Angeles County, more African-American parolees
live in areas with lower accessibility than do Latino or white
parolees. By way of comparison, Alameda County has a similar pattern, but in Kern and San Diego counties, more Latino
parolees reside in areas with lower accessibility to hospitals
than do white and African-American parolees (not shown).
With regard to mental health resources, a larger share
of parolees in Kern and San Diego counties live in areas
with the two lowest levels of accessibility than do parolees in
Alameda and Los Angeles counties. In terms of accessibility
to alcohol- and drug-treatment providers, the opposite is
true. Only about a third of parolees in Kern and San Diego
counties live in areas with the two lowest levels of accessibility, compared with between 42 and 44 percent of parolees in
Alameda and Los Angeles counties, respectively.
Accessibility to mental health care and alcohol- and
drug-treatment resources also varies by race/ethnicity. For
example, in Kern and San Diego counties, roughly 84 percent
of African-American parolees live in areas with higher accessibility to alcohol- and drug-treatment resources, compared
with only 60–65 percent of Latino and white parolees. In Los
Angeles County, about 50 percent of African-American and
Latino parolees and 60 percent of white parolees live in areas

–3–

Gap Between Parolee Concentrations and Health Care Resources: Southern Los Angeles County

Distribution of Parolees (Percent) Across Hospital Accessibility Levels: Los Angeles County
Level of Accessibility to
Hospitals

All Parolees
(n = 35,710)

African-American Parolees
(n = 12,885)

Lowest accessibility

24

29

21

24

Mid-low accessibility

29

31

30

23

Mid-high accessibility

30

25

33

30

Highest accessibility

17

15

16

23

100

100

100

100

Total

Latino Parolees
(n = 14,921)

White Parolees
(n = 6,671)

NOTE: The “other” race/ethnicity group (n = 1,233) is not shown.

with higher accessibility. In Alameda County, there are smaller
differences in accessibility to these resources by race/ethnicity.
For mental health care and drug and alcohol treatment,
separate networks provide services to the parolee population and serve as the initial safety net for them. But both

networks have very limited capacity, suggesting that many
parolees may not be receiving these services and that most
of the reentry population must rely instead on treatment
resources available to the uninsured and low-income populations in a county.

–4–

Implications

The analysis of the distribution and concentration of parolees
in California showed that there are distinct clusters across
the state and that, within counties, parolees tend to cluster in
certain communities and neighborhoods. Such clustering has
implications for developing strategies to provide health care
services and other resources to parolees and to better link this
population to needed services. That parolees in more rural
counties tend to be more dispersed suggests that a different
strategy for providing health care services to these individuals is needed. Also, Los Angeles County (with the largest
proportion of parolees) is a combination of both urban and
more sparsely populated areas. The county’s large number of
distinct parolee clusters cover a broad geographic area. This
suggests the need to tailor strategies for providing services to
the parolee population by supervisorial district and SPA.
In addition, the fact that African-American and Latino
parolees, in particular, tend to return to disadvantaged
neighborhoods and communities suggests that reentry in
these communities will be even more challenging because the
parolees’ needs for health care, housing, employment, and
other services will be harder to meet.
Furthermore, because community clinics play a large
role in filling geographic gaps in the safety net, one strategy
to improve the level of accessibility in areas with high concentrations of parolees would be to fund more community
clinics. Then again, in the current economic crisis, safetynet providers will become even more stressed. As California
considers options for reducing correctional costs by releasing
more parolees or offenders without conditions of parole, it is
important to assess the health care impact of these decisions.
Community clinics and hospitals, particularly in areas with
high concentrations of parolees and where few other community resources exist, will be especially affected.
There is also a need to consider how to better integrate
the different networks of substance abuse treatment services
and assess where greater investments may be needed. Investing in improving access to these services in communities
where parolees are concentrated may yield long-term benefits
when it comes to improving the chances of successful reentry,

including positive treatment and criminal justice outcomes.
Policymakers may also consider ways to improve access to
county alcohol- and drug-treatment services.
Like the substance abuse safety net, the mental health
one comprises a patchwork of networks. Parole Outpatient
Clinics (POCs) are an important initial source of mental
health care for parolees and, at least in one of the four focus
counties, serve as the gatekeeper to accessing county mental
health services. Coupled with prerelease assessments, POCs
have been shown to contribute to lower recidivism rates
among mentally ill offenders. However, the study found that
there are relatively few POCs in the four counties and that
many parolees have to travel far to access these services. Further, anecdotal information suggests that some POCs may
see cutbacks in staffing, given the current economic crisis.
It is also important to assess policy and institutional
barriers that may prevent access to needed services. One area
worth assessing is the POC gatekeeper role. From a health
services perspective, this may undermine parolee reentry
efforts, because some POCs are understaffed and have long
waiting lists. Also, anecdotally, it appears that parolees have
a strong disincentive to report mental health problems to
their parole officer for fear of being considered at high risk
of recidivism. These types of policy and institutional barriers
will be examined in more depth in the study’s second phase.
Finally, beyond these specific research-related implications, the approach of mapping parolee clusters in the context
of the safety net and accessibility to health care resources
is an important step, not only in helping policymakers and
practitioners understand the public health implications of
reentry, but also in helping them best allocate and fund
resources for this population. These measures provide an
indication of how potential access to safety-net resources
varies within each county for the parolee population. The
approach to measuring accessibility was independently validated by comparing how well the measures correlated with
measures of medically underserved areas and populations in
California. These results provide confidence that the measures are robust and can serve as a useful planning tool. ■

This research highlight describes work done for RAND Health and RAND Infrastructure, Safety, and Environment documented in Understanding the Public Health
Implications of Prisoner Reentry in California: Phase I Report, by Lois M. Davis, Nancy Nicosia, Adrian Overton, Lisa Miyashiro, Kathryn Pitkin Derose, Terry Fain,
Susan Turner, Paul Steinberg, and Eugene Williams III, TR-687-TCE (available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR687/), 2009, 218 pp. This research
highlight was written by Paul Steinberg. The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address
the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. R® is a registered trademark.

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RB-9458-TCE (2009)

HEALTH a nd IN FRAS T RU C T U RE ,
SAFETY, A N D E N VIRON ME N T
THE ARTS
CHILD POLICY

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CIVIL JUSTICE
EDUCATION
ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
NATIONAL SECURITY

This product is part of the RAND Corporation
research brief series. RAND research briefs present
policy-oriented summaries of individual published, peerreviewed documents or of a body of published work.

POPULATION AND AGING
PUBLIC SAFETY
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
SUBSTANCE ABUSE
TERRORISM AND
HOMELAND SECURITY
TRANSPORTATION AND
INFRASTRUCTURE

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research
organization providing objective analysis and effective
solutions that address the challenges facing the public
and private sectors around the world.

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