Incarcerated persons are more at-risk for health problems than non-incarcerated persons. Lack of adequate medical care prior to incarceration, combined with specific prison characteristics, places incarcerated people at higher risk for STDs, HIV, hepatitis C, and also aggravates chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes. The Wellness Curriculum, a collaborative project between the Orange County Health Department and the Orange County Corrections Department, helps to address the health needs of inmates by providing information and education that is useful to them not only while they are in prison but, even more, as they are released into the community.

The Wellness Curriculum was developed 1) to address the racial/ethnic disparities in health outcomes and 2) to fill the need for information that the inmates themselves expressed.

Currently, Orange County Jail has 3,334 inmates. In the six-month pilot, the project has successfully reached 355 inmates (over 10 percent of the inmate population).