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Abstract Background Death records are a rich source of data, which can be used to assist with public surveillance and/or decision support. However, to use this type of data for such purposes it has to be transformed into a coded format to make it computable. Because the cause of death in the certificates is reported as free text, encoding the data is currently the single largest barrier of using death certificates for surveillance. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of using a pipeline, composed of a detection rule and a natural language processor, for the real time encoding of death certificates using the identification of pneumonia and influenza cases as an example and demonstrating that its accuracy is comparable to existing methods. Results A Death Certificates Pipeline (DCP) was developed to automatically code death certificates and identify pneumonia and influenza cases. The pipeline used MetaMap to code death certificates from the Utah Department of Health for the year 2008. The output of MetaMap was then accessed by detection rules which flagged pneumonia and influenza cases based on the Centers of Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC) case definition. The output from the DCP was compared with the current method used by the CDC and with a keyword search. Recall, precision, positive predictive value and F-measure with respect to the CDC method were calculated for the two other methods considered here. The two different techniques compared here with the CDC method showed the following recall/ precision results: DCP: 0.998/0.98 and keyword searching: 0.96/0.96. The F-measure were 0.99 and 0.96 respectively (DCP and keyword searching). Both the keyword and the DCP can run in interactive form with modest computer resources, but DCP showed superior performance. Conclusion The pipeline proposed here for coding death certificates and the detection of cases is feasible and can be extended to other conditions. This method provides an alternative that allows for coding free-text death certificates in real time that may increase its utilization not only in the public health domain but also for biomedical researchers and developers. Trial Registration This study did not involved any clinical trials.

Some research has considered whether faith-informed programs help persons with a previous incarceration navigate a life away from crime. Few studies considered whether offense category moderates this relationship. Building upon studies that found a strong association between a prior sexual conviction and participation in religion in prison, we assess whether time spent in humanist, spiritual, and religious (HSR) programs in prison is associated with reconviction, separately for persons convicted of a sex offense and any other offense. Our results revealed that a higher level of participation in HSR programs was associated with a lower likelihood and rate of reconviction; however, this effect was more pronounced for persons with a prior sexual conviction. Supplementary analyses revealed that the use of religion in an extrinsic manner was beneficial, suggesting this group may look to religion to gain social support and overcome rejection and loneliness. Extrinsic religiosity among other groups, however, was associated with an increased risk of reconviction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criminological literature has largely ignored the specific religious and spiritual ways people in prison identify and make meaning in their life. Analysis of whether identification predicts recidivism above and beyond criminal risk could have significant implications for assessment and treatment of people in prison. Using data from a Spiritual Assessment of 571 people in prison in Oregon, this study compares recidivism behavior of individuals who identify as both religious and spiritual with those who identify as only spiritual but not religious, religious but not spiritual, and neither spiritual nor religious. As expected, religious and spiritual participants were less likely to reoffend than spiritual but not religious inmates. Group differences were partially explained by intrinsic religious orientation and service attendance. The results highlight the importance of ensuring support for persons in prison in the process of making meaning, in addition to supporting the work of prison chaplains and religious volunteers in prison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Trauma events are four times more prevalent in inmates than in the general public and are associated with increased recidivism and other mental and physical health issues. Objective: To evaluate the effects of Transcendental Meditationa (TM) on trauma symptoms in male inmates. Design: One hundred eighty-one inmates with a moderate- to high-risk criminal profile were randomly assigned to either the TM program or to a usual care control group. Main Outcome Measures: The Trauma Symptom Checklist and the Perceived Stress Scale were administered at baseline and four-month posttest. Results: Significant reductions in total trauma symptoms, anxiety, depression, dissociation, and sleep disturbance subscales, and perceived stress in the TM group were found compared with controls (all p values < 0.001). The high-trauma subgroup analysis further showed a higher magnitude of effects in the TM group compared with controls on all outcomes, with Cohen effect sizes ranging from 0.67 to 0.89. Conclusion: Results are consistent with those of prior studies of the TM program in other populations and its effects on trauma symptoms and perceived stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents evidence for why Corrections should take the humanist, spiritual, and religious self-identities of people in prison seriously, and do all it can to foster and support those self-identities, or ways of establishing meaning in life. Humanist, spiritual, and religious (H/S/R) pathways to meaning can be an essential part of the evidence-based responsivity principle of effective correctional programming, and the desistance process for men and women involved in crime. This paper describes the sociology of the H/S/R involvement of 349 women and 3,009 men during the first year of their incarceration in the Oregon prison system. Ninety-five percent of the women and 71% of the men voluntarily attended at least one H/S/R event during their first year of prison. H/S/R events were mostly led by diverse religious and spiritual traditions, such as Native American, Protestant, Islamic, Wiccan, Jewish, Jehovah Witness, Latter-day Saints/Mormon, Seventh Day Adventist, Buddhist, and Catholic, but, increasingly, events are secular or humanist in context, such as education, yoga, life-skills development, non-violent communication, and transcendental meditation groups. The men and women in prison had much higher rates of H/S/R involvement than the general population in Oregon. Mirroring gender-specific patterns of H/S/R involvement found in the community, women in prison were much more likely to attend H/S/R events than men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses how the topic of religion and the criminal justice system is now on the national criminological agenda and makes recommendations that policy makers should consider incorporating into their decision-making process. Policy makers should clearly articulate their own basic assumptions about the nature of people to be good and to change as it applies to the penal system. Once policy makers understand the role of religion among offenders, they should strengthen the role of professional correctional chaplains. They should also promote a mutual dialogue between the principles of effective correctional treatment and the ethical and compassionate principles of religion. Incorporation of the recommendations should result in a more humane criminal justice system and reduce recidivism.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Are the Clinical Effects of Homoeopathy Placebo Effects? Comparative Study of Placebo-Controlled Trials of Homoeopathy and Allopathy," by A. Shang and his colleagues published in the August 2005 issue of the journal "The Lancet."

This study explores the long-term impact on recidivism of the engagement of over 300 women prisoners with humanist, spiritual and religious ways of making meaning during their incarceration. Prison chaplains and community volunteers in the Oregon Department of Corrections offered a diverse range of humanist, spiritual and religious (HSR) events to the women, and 95% of them voluntarily engaged at varied levels with an average participation rate of about 3 h per month. The women who attended most often were motivated to do so by intrinsic or meaning-driven reasons and were more likely to have listened to a religious program on radio or TV in the six months before their incarceration. Controlling for ethnicity, risk of recidivism, participation in other programs (education, substance use, cognitive and work), length of time incarcerated, and infractions during incarceration we found an overall significantly positive impact of HSR involvement on recidivism during the first year after release and over a 13-year follow-up period post prison. The impact was concentrated among the 20% of women who attended most frequently (4 or more hours per month) indicating a dosage and consistency of practice effect. Prison chaplains and volunteers make a valuable contribution to the lives of women in prison and to the correctional system; the pro-social support/modeling and diverse help with meaning-making they offer in prison has a positive influence on the women’s journey of desistance in the community after prison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]