Study on the Impact of Patient Navigators on the Health Education and Quality of Life in Formerly Incarcerated Patients

This is a 3-year prospective randomized comparative study of the efficacy of patient navigation on health education, health related quality of life, healthcare utilization, and medical outcomes in formerly incarcerated individuals. Individuals will be randomized to the patient-navigator intervention or to a care-as-usual control condition. A total of 300 recently incarcerated individuals will be enrolled with 150 subjects each in the intervention and usual care group. The investigators hypothesize that the intervention will improve health education, health related quality of life, adherence to clinical appointments, glycemic/blood pressure control, and virologic suppression in HIV-infected. The results of this study will demonstrate interventions to eliminate health disparities in a highly marginalized group going through the transitional phase of re-entry into the community.