Att E - Intro Letter

ATTACHMENT E: NSPHC Introduction Letter

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

National Center for Health Statistics

3311 Toledo Road

Hyattsville, Maryland 20782

Dear _____,

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in partnership with the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice, is conducting the National Survey of Prison Health Care (NSPHC). The purpose of this survey is to gain an overall understanding of health care provided in our Nation’s prisons. The information requested from your prison system includes data about the structure, capacity and utilization of health care services; availability and use of health screenings; disease prevention policies; discharge planning; and use of electronic health records.

Participation in the NSPHC is completely voluntary. Your participation will allow us to more accurately describe prison health care systems on a national and jurisdiction level. Data collection for the NSPHC is authorized by Section 306 of the Public Health Service Act (Title 42, U.S. Code, 242k) and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as amended (42 U.S.C. 3732). The data collected are not deemed confidential as most of the information is considered to be in the public domain.

Please be assured that no data in the NSPHC will be collected directly from inmates. NCHS will be sharing your system-level data, including the jurisdiction from which the data come, with BJS. Information on the number of inmates at a selected point in time will be provided by BJS and will be appended to the information you provide about your state system. The data collected will be published as a co-authored report between NCHS and BJS. Aggregated jurisdiction-level data will be disclosed to the public in the report and in a public use data file that will be made be available. We will not be collecting any facility names, but please note that in some cases it may be possible to identify a facility due to small numbers in a jurisdiction or because of special characteristics of those facilities.

Please return the completed survey within 30 days in the FedEx envelope provided. If you have questions, please feel free to call Dr. Carol DeFrances from at (301) 458-4440. Thank you for your time and participation in this important data collection effort.

Sincerely,

Edward J. Sondik, Ph.D.

Director, National Center for Health Statistics

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention