This Policy Spotlight documents the growing concern for the health of the incarcerated population and explores the implication of unabated prison and jail COVID-19 outbreaks for the health of Illinois communities where correctional facilities are located. It argues that jails and prisons are not isolated or removed from the community. Preventing COVID-19 transmission in jails and prisons requires steps to ensure that COVID-19 outbreaks within correctional settings do not spill over to the surrounding communities, and that infection does not enter into correctional facilities from the community. Meeting the public health and mental health needs of inmates is not only just, it is smart public health policy.

SPH researchers collaborated with the Southwest Environmental Alliance to analyze the ongoing pollution and health impacts from the high density of polluting facilities within the industrial corridors encircling the neighborhoods of Pilsen, Little Village, Back of the Yards, Bridgeport, Canaryville, Brighton Park and McKinley Park.  These communities are largely Latino and have per capita income levels that are substantially lower than the city average. Through the conscious planning and support of the City of Chicago, the number of facilities in the surrounding industrial corridors is increasing, along with levels of pollution and health effects like increasing rates of cancer, asthma and respiratory disease.