Prisons and COVID-19: A Desperate Call for Gerontological Expertise in Correctional Health Care.

The large and continued growth of the older adult population within U.S. prisons affects not only criminal justice policy and correctional health practice, but also gerontology. Amidst the unfolding COVID-19 crisis, associated knowledge and skills surrounding older adulthood will be critical to assuring the needs of older adults incarcerated in prisons are met during their detention, while undergoing off-site intervention in community settings, and when preparing for release. We outline several key areas for which gerontologists and associated practitioners are especially well suited in the effort to curtail morbidity and mortality driven by the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Critical gerontological knowledge and skills needed in prison health care include awareness regarding the unusual clinical presentations of COVID-19 among older adults, deconditioning among older adults due to immobility, challenges in prognostication, and advance care planning with older adults. Specific, targeted opportunities for gerontologists are identified to reduce growing risks for older adults incarcerated in prisons

Supplemental Material - Characterizing Aging-Related Health in Older Women with a History of Incarceration: Multimorbidity, Polypharmacy, Mortality, Frailty, and Depression

Supplemental Material for Characterizing Aging-Related Health in Older Women with a History of Incarceration: Multimorbidity, Polypharmacy, Mortality, Frailty, and Depression by Amanda Emerson, Xinyang Li, Nick Zaller, and Megha Ramaswamy in Journal of Aging and Health</p

Gerber and Jack-son 1993

T he relationship between mass and elite opinion is a central issue to the study of voting behavior, parties and elections, public opinion, and representation in democratic systems. For a variety of theoretical reasons, scholars expect elite opinion to affect mass attitudes and behavior. The literatures on priming, persuasion, and cue taking all offer theoretical accounts about how elite opinion shapes how voters approach public policy issues and what attitudes they adopt. In contrast, much of the theoretical literature on representation and electoral competition tells the opposite story: party and elite policy positions respond to voter policy preferences. This reciprocal relationship raises fundamental methodological problems in attempting to isolate empirically the effect of elite communication on public opinion. While a great deal of research has recognized and attempted to address this problem (for further discussion and examples, see, e.g.

Social Media Analysis and Public Opinion:The 2010 UK General Election

Social media monitoring in politics can be understood by situating it in theories of public opinion. The multimethod study we present here indicates how social media monitoring allow for analysis of social dynamics through which opinions form and shift. Analysis of media coverage from the 2010 UK General Election demonstrates that social media are now being equated with public opinion by political journalists. We use interviews with pollsters, social media researchers and journalists to examine the perceived link between social media and public opinion. In light of competing understandings these interviews reveal, we argue for a broadening of the definition of public opinion to include its social dimension