“Everyone Hears Everyone’s Business”: Health Care Provider Perspectives on Privacy and Confidentiality in U.S. Prisons and Jails

Incarcerated people suffer stigmatized conditions at higher rates than nonincarcerated people, making upholding privacy and confidentiality ethically essential in prisons and jails. Yet these health professional values are widely acknowledged to be challenging to maintain in carceral settings. Robust qualitative data on how physicians and nurses navigate and perceive limitations to privacy and confidentiality in U.S. prisons and jails is lacking. This study reports on 55 semistructured interviews with physicians and nurses who have worked in federal or state prisons and/or jails across the United States. Participants perceive multiple challenges to privacy and confidentiality in prisons and jails and yet differ in how important they think it is to protect these values in comparison with other pressing concerns.