Jail-Based Case Management Improves Retention in HIV Care 12 Months Post Release

Continuous and coordinated HIV care is essential for persons living with HIV to benefit from the advances in medical treatment of the disease. Approximately one in seven individuals living with HIV pass through correctional facilities annually. While sentenced individuals may receive discharge planning services, detainees in local jails usually do not. The multisite evaluation of the EnhanceLink initiative demonstrated that jail based services including discharge planning were associated with high rates of linkage to community HIV care upon release. Follow up for the multisite evaluation was limited to 6 months. This paper extends follow up to 12 months at one site and demonstrates that clients who were linked by the jail based case manager to a Ryan White community based case manager were more than nine times more likely to be retained in care at 12 month post release. (OR 9.39, CI 1.11–79.12).