Digital Health Interventions Addressing HIV Stigma Post-Incarceration: A Scoping Review of Transitional Care

The primary purpose of this research project is to systematically map existing mobile health (mHealth) and digital health interventions designed to mitigate intersectional HIV-related stigma among people living with HIV (PLWH) during incarceration and their subsequent transition back into the community. Every year, thousands of PLWH navigate the abrupt shift from highly structured carceral medical care to community re-entry, a period marked by catastrophic drops in care engagement, where only 34% of individuals successfully link to community clinics within 90 days of release. While structural barriers like housing and transportation heavily disrupt care, psychosocial barriers, specifically the "double stigma" of a criminal record layered over an HIV-positive status, force individuals into isolation and lead them to avoid local clinics out of fear of status disclosure. Although digital health tools such as mobile applications, short message services (SMS), and virtual support networks offer discrete, on-demand communication channels that circumvent public clinic exposure, the empirical evidence regarding tools specifically tailored for carceral re-entry remains fragmented across the separate fields of public health, criminology, and software design. To address this gap, this scoping review will systematically chart the scattered literature, clarify how existing digital tools target double stigma, and identify key empirical and structural design limitations. The expected outcomes of this study include the generation of a comprehensive, synthesized evidence map and a rigorous empirical foundation that will serve as a conceptual roadmap for developers, researchers, and public health practitioners. Ultimately, these findings are expected to guide future co-design frameworks to build tailored, user-friendly digital tools that sustain long-term healthcare engagement for vulnerable transitioning populations, with specific operational relevance to high-burden urban settings like Johannesburg, South Africa.