The Prison Health Research Council (PHRC) is a group of people with lived experience of incarceration, housed under the McMaster University Department of Family Medicine, who aim to advance prison health research in Ontario and beyond.
The Council includes twelve members with lived experience of incarceration with diverse socio-demographic characteristics and life experiences. This reflects the varied population who may be incarcerated in Canadian prisons, including from groups that are over-represented in Canadian prisons or have unique viewpoints due to the correctional system structures (e.g., binary gendered prisons), such as Black, Indigenous, queer, and trans members.
People who experience incarceration have poorer health status compared to the general Canadian population, including in areas such as mental health and substance use, communicable diseases, chronic diseases, sexual and reproductive health, and mortality in custody. This poorer health status is further impacted by incarceration itself. While research is being conducted about this population, too often it is developed and carried out without partnership or engagement of people with lived experience of incarceration.
People who have been incarcerated are systematically marginalized by virtue of their incarceration, as well as the forces and processes underpinning the social determination of incarceration and health. While researchers may include people with lived experience of incarceration in their research, often this population is also systematically excluded from participation in post-secondary education and academia.
Enabling people who conduct research to take roles in planning, reviewing, conducting, and overseeing that research can make that work more valid, more appropriate, and more ethical. This Prison Health Research Council takes one step towards helping ameliorate the systemic exclusion of people with lived experience of incarceration from research and academia, through reflecting the needs, priorities, and issues of people who experience incarceration in Ontario.