Beyond Prison Walls: A Scoping Review of Incarceration's Public Health Impacts in Latin America

Incarceration has vast and unequal impacts on public health beyond prison walls. Research from the United States documents these collateral consequences, including elevated mental illness and morbidity for the children and partners of incarcerated individuals, alongside community-level effects such as increased rates of teenage pregnancy and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. In Latin America, however, these broader health impacts remain critically understudied. A significant barrier is the absence of data collection efforts or theoretical frameworks for mapping how Latin America's prisons affect the health of families and surrounding communities.

This scoping review synthesises existing evidence on the collateral health consequences of incarceration in Latin America by conducting a comprehensive search in 2025 that included English, Spanish and Portuguese language peer-reviewed studies.

From 17 included documents, prisons emerge as epicentres for tuberculosis transmission to visiting families and surrounding communities. The evidence reveals significant mental and physical health burdens on families. Women with incarcerated partners experience depression and anxiety whilst managing economic strain and expanded caregiving responsibilities, often neglecting their own health. Children of incarcerated parents show marked emotional distress, and incarcerated mothers alongside their young children face severely inadequate healthcare access within detention spaces.

Despite collecting demographic data, most studies overlook how these burdens fall unequally across racialised populations. Future research must centre ethnoracial disparities and situated knowledge.