The health of people in Australia's prisons 2022

The main data source for this report is the 2022 National Prisoner Health Data Collection (NPHDC). Data for the NPHDC were collected in 2-week periods in all states and territories except Victoria, which did not participate. 

Most data in the NPHDC is self-reported. The NPHDC consists of 5 forms, each collecting different information:

• Entrants form – completed by a health professional or researcher for people entering prison (or completing quarantine) during the data collection who consented to participate. It included questions on:
  • the demographics of prison entrants
  • mental health
  • chronic diseases
  • disability
  • tobacco, alcohol and other drug use
  • health service use.
• Dischargees form – completed by a health professional or researcher for people in prison scheduled to be released during, or within 4 weeks, of the data collection period who consented to participate. It included questions about:
  • demographics
  • mental health
  • chronic diseases
  • tobacco, alcohol and other drug use
  • use of prison health services
  • injuries in prison
  • preparation for release.
• Clinic form – completed by a health professional for people in custody who visited the prison clinic during the data collection period and consented to participate. It included questions about demographics, who initiated the visit, the problems managed at the visit, and the type of health professional consulted.
• Medications form – completed by a health professional on a single day during the data collection period for people in custody who were dispensed prescription medications. It included questions on the demographics of the individual, and medication types dispensed.
• Establishment form – completed once for each prison clinic. It included questions about whether health services were provided by ACCHOs or Aboriginal Medical Services, and questions about discharge planning, immunisation, full-time-equivalent staffing, pregnant females in prison, and hospital transfers.

These forms were completed either electronically via an online survey or on paper forms.

While the data collected from the forms were comprehensive, additional sources of data were used in this report to provide greater detail, contextualise findings and to ensure denominators were appropriate. These data sources included the:

• Australian Institute of Criminology’s Deaths in Custody Monitoring Program reports (McAlister and Bricknell 2022), which provided data on deaths in prison
• Department of Social Services, which provided data on deaths following release from prison
• Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which provided the denominator (the number of people in prisons included in the 2022 NPHDC as at 30 June 2022) for the indicators sourced from the Clinic and Medications forms.

More information about data sources and denominators can be found in Related Material – Appendix B.