- December 09, 2025
- By Fid Thompson
Going to prison or even getting arrested negatively affects a person’s health long after the experience, worsening age-related health problems such as chronic pain, sleep quality and memory problems, according to new research from the University of Maryland School of Public Health (SPH).
The study, published last week in the Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology, examined data from the ongoing Woodlawn Study, a UMD-managed project that has followed over 1,200 people since they attended first grade in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood in 1966-67.
The latest study is unique in that it examines arrest and incarceration separately; it also broadens the understanding of aging by tracking new factors related to people’s well-being and functional abilities, such as sleep, loneliness, cognitive functioning and hearing loss.
Research Professor Elaine Eggleston Doherty, an expert in criminology and public health, authored the new research with SPH colleagues Kerry Green and Brittany Bugbee. They found that people with a history of incarceration faced worse long-term health and aging outcomes; were less likely to be free from physical impairments than those who had never been arrested (55% compared to 70%, respectively), less likely to sleep well (36% versus 46%) and less likely to have normal cognition (52% versus 71%).
“The policies driving mass incarceration in the 1980s and 1990s were disproportionately felt by communities of color who are now in their 60s, yet we know far too little about how the long shadow of these early-life experiences shape the aging process,” Doherty said. “Understanding these experiences is essential if we want to design aging-related supports and strategies to improve aging and reduce disparities.”
Three out of four people in the Woodlawn Study cohort are still alive. For this most recent assessment, researchers spoke with over 500 people from the original group, of whom half still live in the Chicago area, a quarter are retired and just over half are working.
Doherty, who has worked with Woodlawn Study data for 20 years, said the impact of the study volunteers’ long participation makes possible research that considers how social factors throughout the full span of a person’s life shape their health and well-being. Against the backdrop of an aging U.S. population, these findings highlight that contact with the criminal legal system impacts multiple facets of healthy aging, and also offers insights to improve the aging experience.
The team intends to dig further into how different groups within the cohort experience aging and better understand how self-perceptions of aging and health are influenced by past experiences.