The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world and a relatively high proportion of minority males spend time in prison during young adulthood. A history of incarceration is not typically included as a measure of stress in health studies, but recent studies suggest that this may be an important risk factor. In the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, any exposure to incarceration as a teenager or young adult was associated with an increased risk of severe functional limitations.98 Intriguingly, any contact with prison was more important than the amount of contact, even after adjustment for a number of controls. The CARDIA study which has followed a cohort of young adults aged 18 to 30 at baseline, also found that any time in jail during the first three years of the study was associated with increased risk of incident hypertension three years later and higher end organ damage related to hypertension.99 Incarceration is likely to be what has been called a “disorderly transitional” stressful event in which this exposure creates role changes that are non-normative, undesired, involuntary and sometimes
