The most serious health outcome for an incarcerated individual is death. Nearly all deaths in jails can be traced to health-related causes, including mental illness, physical disease, or substance use. While some deaths are natural and unavoidable, far too many are preventable. In this opening plenary session, Dr. Stern will provide an overview of deaths in jails and examine key epidemiologic factors that can help guide prevention efforts. He will review the national systems used to collect data on jail deaths, identify weaknesses within those systems, and discuss how data limitations affect understanding and prevention. Finally, he will introduce the conference framework and preview how the individual presentations contribute to a comprehensive approach to reducing deaths in custody.

Educational Objectives

• Identify key epidemiologic factors associated with deaths in custody—and gaps in existing knowledge—that inform strategies to reduce jail deaths
• Describe how each conference presentation fits within an overarching framework to reduce deaths in jails
• Discuss common causes of preventable deaths in jails