Wings for Life has chosen to act, to step up, to stand up to help build the bridge of knowledge of the incoming waves…to sound the alarm…if we chose not to act…what will happen…more importantly Wings for life has developed a series of action plans.  That will not only change to course of the epidemic; but build collaborative partnerships, that we not only survive, but thrive.

The Mission of Wings For Life is to address and the social, medical, and economic impacts of prison health care has on of inmates/ex-offenders and the communities they return.

Continued Traumatic Stress Disorder (CTSD)
The churning of the incarcerated from correctional systems to overburden and underserved social, economic, and medically burden communities creates  Continued Traumatic Stress Disorder. In these communities victory is considered surviving each day.

The Unseen, Forgotten,  and Uncounted
Twenty five years ago, people of color and health care providers viewed HIV/AIDS as white gay male disease, over the course of those years the face of HIV/AIDS has changed it is  now black, brown, red, and women.The releases of this young, sick, 65%-70% HIV/AIDS co-infected, and uninsured population will impact emergency departments, inpatient length of stays, doctor visits, outpatient medical care, readmission rates, bed management, social admits, hospices, skilled nursing facilities, and increase the number of patients dying in hospital. They are the unseen and uncounted that within the next 5-15 years will require complex high utilized health care at public and private medical centers as they flow between incarceration and release.

Hepatitis C Epidemic – Migration from Prisons to Communities
As states across the country grabble to balance their budgets many are proposing early release programs of “non-violent” inmates.  The majority of discussions of early release are focused on potential criminal activities of ex-offenders but the real danger of  early release programs is up to 40% of early released inmates are infected with hepatitis C.

The Future Face of Hepatitis C – Women of Color
Residing in low income communities of commitment many women of color have limited opportunities to date, marry or have children with men who do not have a history of incarceration. Because of culture and history of violence many women of color will not ask or demand their mates use a condom. The migration  patterns of HIV/AIDS  from the correctional system to women of color is evident twenty plus years into the epidemic HIV/AIDS is  now the leading cause of death of African American women ages 25-35 and the third leading cause of death of Latinas ages 25-35.