NorMA: Quality of life and training
Ley Muller at the National Institute of Public Health researches on prison inmates' subjective assessments of everyday life in prison, social conditions and health. In the NorMA study she has worked on projects related to quality of life and exercise.
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Quality of life among prisoners:
Prison inmates are rarely asked how they feel when they are in prison. In large parts of the world, a prison sentence involves daily reminders of punishment, and it is therefore expected that the quality of life of prisoners is significantly reduced. The Norwegian prison model strives for life in prison to reflect to the greatest possible extent life outside prison, and it is therefore interesting to examine Norwegian prisoners' own assessment of quality of life.
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An article on quality of life in prison was published in International Journal of Prisoner Health in March 2019.
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Exercise among inmates:
Ley Muller has looked at how NorMA participants trained before imprisonment versus how active they became after incarceration. She has compared these changes with concomitant changes in drug use. The results show that exercise seems to be an important activity for people who had substance abuse problems before they were imprisoned. Facilitating training during imprisonment is both health-promoting and resource-intensive.
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The article was published in The International Journal of Environmental and Public Health in 2018.
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