Two recent studies found that older adults who have experienced incarceration face worsened health and well-being compared with adults who have not, according to an article published by Prison Policy Initiative Updates.
“Most existing research about the effects of incarceration on health and mortality have focused on the initial weeks, months, and years after people are released from prison,” the article explains. However, these studies have relied on data collected decades after the time of incarceration, when individuals are 50 years or older.
“The most recent of these studies finds that older adults who have experienced any incarceration have shorter life expectancies than those who haven’t.”
In another study published in 2024, “troubling details” about the health and well-being of older formerly incarcerated people compared with those who have not experienced incarceration are revealed.
“The newest publication from Professor Carmen Gutierrez and her colleagues, published last month (May 2026) in the American Journal of Public Health, is one of the first studies to show that any history of incarceration increases mortality (death) risk for older adults,” the article states.
“Professor Gutierrez and her colleagues analyzed the results of the 2012 and 2014 iterations of the Health & Retirement Study, a longitudinal, nationally representative survey of nearly 14,000 U.S. adults over the age of 50.”
The results of Professor Gutierrez’s survey were drastic. “While controlling for other characteristics like age, sex, race and ethnicity, and childhood health and socioeconomic factors, the researchers found that formerly incarcerated older people have an 88% higher hazard of premature death compared to those with no incarceration history,” the article states.
“More specifically, older people who have experienced incarceration are expected to live nearly six fewer years than similar peers who have never been incarcerated.”
Formerly incarcerated men and women died at “significantly younger ages” — 74.8 and 68 years, respectively — than their peers who had never been incarcerated. The latter lived an average of 82.3 years and 82.9 years, respectively.
“For men between 50 and 75 years old, the difference was even greater at close to eight fewer years.” However, after age 75, the effects of incarceration on mortality were negligible.
The crux of these findings is that incarceration is detrimental to the health and well-being of adults years after their release.
Not only is life expectancy reduced for this group compared with their peers without an incarceration history, but “the researchers find that any past incarceration is associated with impairments of mobility, vision, and activities of daily living, as well as diagnoses of cancer, depression, and chronic lung disease among people 50 and older in the U.S.”
An earlier study “authored by a team of academic researchers including Professor Gutierrez” reveals details about the health of formerly incarcerated people in older age, “with particular focus on chronic conditions that undoubtedly contribute to their shortened life expectancy.”
“This study is based on an analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), which follows a nationally representative sample of over 20,000 people who were in grades 7-12 during the 1994-95 school year. The research team analyzed data collected from two specific groups of people in this massive, long-term study.”
The two major sample groups in the study were parents and partners. The parents sample was made up of mothers by a 96% margin.
Partners referred to the spouses of parents; 95% of this sample were men.
The Add Health study, conducted in rounds between 2015, 2016 and 2017, involved 2,007 parents and 976 partners who were at least 50 years old. “The researchers analyzed survey responses about age-related health concerns among these nearly 3,000 older adults to compare those who reported any history of incarceration and those with no previous incarceration.”
Additionally, “when controlling for age and sex differences, parents with histories of incarceration were more likely to report difficulty walking and difficulty with activities of daily living than those parents with no history of incarceration.” The same was true for formerly incarcerated partners.
In the sample of parents, those who were formerly incarcerated “faced significantly higher rates of cancer, heart disease, stroke, depression, and chronic lung disease,” according to the study. They were also more likely to rate their health as “poor” or “fair,” compared with their peers who never experienced incarceration.
The partner sample proved just as alarming. “In particular, prevalence rates of cancer, depression, chronic lung disease, and ‘heavy’ alcohol use were significantly higher among formerly incarcerated people in the partner sample compared to those with no prior incarceration.”
While researchers did not outline reasons for the different findings between the two samples, the major difference was sex.
These findings stand alongside another facet of the study analyzing “demographic differences between older adults with histories of incarceration and those with none.”
As stated by the article, these were “consistent with what we know about the socioeconomic and racial disparities of incarceration.”
“Compared to older adults with no prior incarceration, formerly incarcerated older adults were more likely to be Black and to report childhood poverty, childhood housing insecurity, lower educational attainment, and fair or poor self-rated health (as opposed to good, very good, or excellent health). In addition, formerly incarcerated older adults were more likely to be unmarried, unemployed, and have a disability than those never incarcerated.”
“As a consequence of the dramatic expansion of incarceration in the last 50 years,” “three in every four people released from state prisons between 1991 and 2021 — more than 12 million people — would be over the age of 50 by 2026,” the article states.
Critics maintain that incarceration deserves recognition as a social determinant of health on the basis of such findings.
“The elevated mortality risk and prevalence of chronic age-related conditions among formerly incarcerated older adults in these studies supports the argument that healthcare providers need to consider individuals’ history of incarceration to better understand the health risks they may face.”
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