This blog is the online companion to a print newsletter read by 5,000 people who are locked up in prisons across the United States. Prison Health News is produced by a Philadelphia-based collective of editors and includes the work of imprisoned artists and writers. Our readers are living inside a system that denies them prevention tools and treatment information about HIV, hepatitis, and other health issues. They are dealing with medical neglect, daily humiliations driven by intense stigma, and the destruction of their communities by mass imprisonment.
Find articles here on health topics, self-care in prison, organizing, and more to send to your loved ones inside and post on social media. And please donate generously so that we can continue to print and mail Prison Health News to those who need it.
To give, please go to our donation page.
The artwork above and on our home page—”Pill Window” and our logo—was created by Jamie Diaz, who is currently incarcerated in Texas. Learn more about Ms. Diaz and her work here.
We are often slow to respond, but you can contact us at prisonhealthnews (at) gmail.com or
Prison Health News
4722 Baltimore Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Mission statement: Prison Health News is an information network project. Our newsletter, published four times a year for people in prison, strives to lift up the voices, experience and expertise of currently and formerly incarcerated people. We are the only resource that responds to requests for health information from people in prisons and jails everywhere in the United States. With the radical power of information, we work to break down prison walls and build health and social justice for all.
Prison Health News was founded by John Bell and Laura McTighe at Philadelphia FIGHT in 2003, with assistance from John S James of AIDS Treatment News. In 2009, Teresa Sullivan and others from Reaching Out: A Support Group With Action continued the work. It then moved to the Institute for Community Justice at Philadelphia FIGHT. Prison Health News is now an independent organization.
Prison Health News 