As economists go, Jeff Weaver knows that sometimes he isn't terribly original.

A lot of people have been interested in this question trying to understand

how does past incarceration affect health and mortality status.

There's a good reason it's a popular research topic.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world,

according to the non-profit Prison Policy Initiative.

A report they released earlier this year indicated that there are almost two

million people in jails and prisons in this country.

Most research suggests that on the whole, incarceration is bad for prisoners' health

and their mortality. It increases the risk for infectious diseases,

mental health conditions, cancer, and violence-related injuries.

But it's not clear as that due to incarceration, as that due to other risk factors that

might affect mortality. Jeff and his colleagues started to dig into this question themselves

using data on prisoners from the state of Ohio. We can see that even prior to incarceration,

the people who will eventually be incarcerated exhibit much more risky behaviors.

That wasn't the only thing they saw.

I can just give you one number. What we find is the people who are incarcerated for a year

have about a 15% lower likelihood of having died after five years. And so this is a pretty

substantial effect. Their findings indicate that long run survival over five years is actually

higher among people who've been incarcerated compared to similar individuals who never were.

This was surprising. Could incarceration be helping some people live longer?

From the Freakonomics Radio Network, this is FreakonomicsMD. I'm Bob Ujena. Today on the show,

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