Men who have sex with men (MSM) are a risk group for new HIV infections. Drug use among men who have sex with men is often accompanied by risky sexual behaviours. Local AIDS help centres and gay advice centres...
Authors: Daniel Deimel, Heino Stöver, Susann Hößelbarth, Anna Dichtl, Niels Graf and Viola Gebhardt
Substance abuse has been considered as a growing challenge in Georgia that is closely linked with human immune deficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C transmission due to unsafe injection and other uncontrolled...
Sex trading is a recognized risk factor for human immune deficiency virus infection and other sexually transmitted infections among non-injecting drug users (NIDUs). However, very little research has addressed...
Authors: Yu Mon Saw, Thu Nandar Saw, Kyi Mar Wai, Krishna C. Poudel and Hla Hla Win
In heroin injectors, there have been a number of outbreaks caused by spore-forming bacteria, causing serious infections such as anthrax or botulism. These are, most likely, caused by injecting contaminated her...
Authors: Nour Alhusein, Jenny Scott, Barbara Kasprzyk-Hordern and Albert Bolhuis
Street-involved youth are known to be an economically vulnerable population that commonly resorts to risky activities such as drug dealing to generate income. While incarceration is common among people who use...
Authors: Carly Hoy, Brittany Barker, Jackie Regan, Huiru Dong, Lindsey Richardson, Thomas Kerr and Kora DeBeck
People living with HIV (PLHIV) who are also marginalized by social and structural inequities often face barriers to accessing and adhering to HIV treatment and care. The Dr. Peter Centre (DPC) is a non-profit ...
Authors: S. Fernando, R. McNeil, K. Closson, H. Samji, S. Kirkland, C. Strike, R. Baltzer Turje, W. Zhang, R. S. Hogg and S. Parashar
The mode of medical cannabis delivery—whether cannabis is smoked, vapourized, or consumed orally—may have important implications for its therapeutic efficacy and health risks. However, there is very little evi...
Authors: Samantha Shiplo, Mark Asbridge, Scott T. Leatherdale and David Hammond
The Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) is a supervised injecting facility (SIF) where people who inject drugs (PWID) can do so legally, under health professional supervision. The majority of c...
Authors: Mark Goodhew, Allison M. Salmon, Christina Marel, Katherine L. Mills and Marianne Jauncey
While the last decade has seen a growth of support for harm reduction around the world, the availability and accessibility of quality harm reduction services in prison settings is uneven and continues to be in...
Authors: Gen Sander, Alessio Scandurra, Anhelita Kamenska, Catherine MacNamara, Christina Kalpaki, Cristina Fernandez Bessa, Gemma Nicolás Laso, Grazia Parisi, Lorraine Varley, Marcin Wolny, Maria Moudatsou, Nuno Henrique Pontes, Patricia Mannix-McNamara, Sandro Libianchi and Tzanetos Antypas
Drug consumption rooms (DCRs) have been implemented worldwide as a harm-reducing strategy. In 2012, Denmark passed legislation allowing establishment of DCRs. The aim of this study was to identify characterist...
Authors: Eva Charlotte Toth, Jette Tegner, Sigurd Lauridsen and Nanna Kappel
Community-based HIV, harm reduction, and addiction research increasingly involve members of affected communities as Peer Research Associates (PRAs)—individuals with common experiences to the participant popula...
Authors: K. Closson, R. McNeil, P. McDougall, S. Fernando, A. B. Collins, R. Baltzer Turje, T. Howard and S. Parashar
Injection drug use remains a primary driver of HIV and HCV-related harms globally. However, there is a gap in efforts to prevent individuals from transitioning into injecting. People who inject drugs (PWID) pl...
Authors: Daniel Werb, Richard Garfein, Thomas Kerr, Peter Davidson, Perrine Roux, Marie Jauffret-Roustide, Marc Auriacombe, Will Small and Steffanie A. Strathdee
To date, no studies have examined the extent of knowledge and perceptions of Good Samaritan Laws (GSLs) among young adults who engage in non-medical prescription opioid (NMPO) use. We sought to determine aware...
Authors: Tristan I. Evans, Scott E. Hadland, Melissa A. Clark, Traci C. Green and Brandon D. L. Marshall
In 2003, a major epidemic of human immunodeficiency virus emerged among injection drug users in Taiwan. In response to the twin epidemics of HIV and intravenous drug addiction, the government implemented compr...
Many misperceptions of both risks and opportunities of e-cigarettes (e-cigs) exist among the general population and among physicians, although e-cigs could be a valuable harm reduction tool for current smokers.
Although targeted interventions in India require all high-risk groups, including injecting drug users (IDUs), to test for HIV every 6 months, testing uptake among IDUs remains far from universal. Our study estima...
Authors: Deepika Ganju, Sowmya Ramesh and Niranjan Saggurti
Drug use contributes to higher rates of morbidity and mortality among people who use drugs compared to the general population. In 2012, Danish politicians passed a law that allowed drug consumption rooms (DCRs...
Authors: Nanna Kappel, Eva Toth, Jette Tegner and Sigurd Lauridsen
The role of peers (former or current drug users) in reducing risky behavior within methamphetamine and crack smokers has not been well described or researched. The current study not only explores the role of p...
Authors: Ehsan Jozaghi, Hugh Lampkin and Martin A. Andresen
Despite high levels of equipment distribution through Needle and Syringe Programmes (NSPs) in Australia, the levels of reuse of equipment among people who inject drugs remain concerning. This paper used an exp...
Authors: Carla Treloar, Limin Mao and Hannah Wilson
The British Columbia take-home naloxone (BCTHN) program has been in operation since 2012 and has resulted in the successful reversal of over 581 opioid overdoses. The study aims to explore BCTHN program partic...
Authors: Andrew Deonarine, Ashraf Amlani, Graham Ambrose and Jane A. Buxton
There is a higher prevalence of alcohol use and severe alcohol dependence among homeless populations. The combination of alcohol use and lack of housing contributes to increased vulnerability to the harms of s...
Authors: Bernadette (Bernie) Pauly, Erin Gray, Kathleen Perkin, Clifton Chow, Kate Vallance, Bonnie Krysowaty and Timothy Stockwell
Managed alcohol programs (MAPs) are a harm reduction strategy for people with severe alcohol dependence and unstable housing. MAPs provide controlled access to alcohol usually alongside accommodation, meals, a...
Authors: Kate Vallance, Tim Stockwell, Bernie Pauly, Clifton Chow, Erin Gray, Bonnie Krysowaty, Kathleen Perkin and Jinhui Zhao
Copious evidence indicates that syringe exchange programs (SEPs) are effective structural interventions for HIV prevention among persons who inject drugs (PWID). The efficacy of SEPs in supporting the public h...
Authors: Sean T. Allen, Monica S. Ruiz, Jeff Jones and Monique M. Turner
Several home-produced substances such as krokodil and boltushka are prevalent in many Eastern European countries. Anecdotal reports of its use have been circulating in Germany and Norway; however, this has not be...
Authors: Evelyn Hearne, Jean-Paul Cornelius Grund, Marie Claire Van Hout and Jim McVeigh
Cocaine use is frequent in patients receiving methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) and can jeopardize their treatment response. Identifying clinical predictors of cocaine use during methadone treatment can po...
Authors: Perrine Roux, Caroline Lions, Antoine Vilotitch, Laurent Michel, Marion Mora, Gwenaelle Maradan, Fabienne Marcellin, Bruno Spire, Alain Morel and Patrizia M. Carrieri
In response to the spread of HIV caused by needle sharing among injection drug users (IDUs), the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control implemented a pilot harm reduction program in 2005 that expanded nationwide i...
Blood contained in needles and injection equipment has been identified as a vector for HIV and HCV transmission among people who inject drugs (PWID). Yet, there is often a wide discrepancy in prevalence for bo...
Authors: Roberto Abadie, Melissa Welch-Lazoritz, Camila Gelpi-Acosta, Juan Carlos Reyes and Kirk Dombrowski
Outcomes of methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) in the management of opioid dependency can be impaired by poor adherence and retention, concomitant drug use, poor adjustment of methadone dosage, and low leve...
Authors: Bo Zhang, Thomas Cai, Zhihua Yan, Gitau Mburu, Bangyuan Wang and Liping Yang
Vietnam is among those countries with the highest drinking prevalence. In this study, we examined the prevalence of alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and its associations with HIV risky behaviors, health care utili...
Authors: Bach Xuan Tran, Long Hoang Nguyen, Cuong Tat Nguyen, Huong Thu Thi Phan and Carl A. Latkin
The aim of the study was to assess potential barriers and challenges to the implementation of take-home naloxone (THN) across ten prisons in one region of England.
Integrating HIV/AIDS and methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) services with existing health care delivery system is critical in sustaining efforts to fight HIV/AIDS in large injection-driven epidemics. Howeve...
Authors: Bach Xuan Tran, Long Hoang Nguyen, Vuong Minh Nong, Cuong Tat Nguyen, Huong Thu Thi Phan and Carl A. Latkin
In Central Asia, there is a need to update information about the situation of people who use (opioid) drugs (PWUD), especially regarding their access to and utilization of health care services. The aim of the ...
Authors: Moritz Rosenkranz, Nina Kerimi, Madina Takenova, Antti Impinen, Mirlan Mamyrov, Peter Degkwitz, Heike Zurhold and Marcus-Sebastian Martens
Assisted injecting has been associated with increased risk of blood-borne infections, overdose, and other harms among people who inject drugs (PWID), particularly women. Given the changing availability of rele...
Authors: Jeanette Somlak Pedersen, Huiru Dong, Will Small, Evan Wood, Paul Nguyen, Thomas Kerr and Kanna Hayashi
High-dose benzodiazepine dependence constitutes a major clinical concern. Although withdrawal treatment is recommended, it is unsuccessful for a significant proportion of affected patients. More recently, a be...
Authors: Michael Liebrenz, Marcel Schneider, Anna Buadze, Marie-Therese Gehring, Anish Dube and Carlo Caflisch
There are few studies of mortality amongst people who inject drugs (PWID) in Australia. In this study, we estimate mortality in a cohort of PWID in Melbourne and examine predictors of mortality including healt...
Authors: Dhanya Nambiar, Paul A. Agius, Mark Stoové, Matthew Hickman and Paul Dietze
Out of 20,887 persons who use drugs that came into contact with the National Anti-Drugs Agency (NADA) officials in the year 2013, 3.2 % were women. Because women who use drugs (WWUD) are often a hidden populat...
Authors: Fifa Rahman, Priya Lall, Sarah Iqbal and B. Vicknasingam
Fentanyl-detected illicit drug overdose deaths in British Columbia (BC) recently increased dramatically from 13 deaths in 2012 to 90 deaths in 2014, signaling an emerging public health concern. Illicit fentany...
Authors: Ashraf Amlani, Geoff McKee, Noren Khamis, Geetha Raghukumar, Erica Tsang and Jane A. Buxton
Recent exposes of drug use in sports suggest that doping might be more problematic than doping-control test results reveal. A zero-tolerance (ZT) model, which aims to eliminate the use, has dominated the think...
This is a brief report on the establishment of a new program in New York State prisons to prepare prisoners to avoid the increased risks of drug overdose death associated with the transition to the community b...
Authors: Howard Zucker, Anthony J. Annucci, Sharon Stancliff and Holly Catania
Smoking cessation treatment service is concerned to be a critical element in methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) in order to diminish the effect of smoke on health outcomes. To implement the smoking cessatio...
Authors: Bach Xuan Tran, Long Hoang Nguyen, Huyen Phuc Do, Nhung Phuong Thi Nguyen, Huong Thu Thi Phan, Michael Dunne and Carl Latkin
Supervised injection sites (SISs) have been effective in reducing health risks among people who inject drugs (PWID), including those who face issues of homelessness, mental health illness, interactions with lo...
Authors: Ashley Shaw, Lisa Lazarus, Tyler Pantalone, Sean LeBlanc, Dolly Lin, Daina Stanley, Caleb Chepesiuk, Sheetal Patel and Mark Tyndall
Pakistan is among four countries in Asia where the estimated number of new HIV infections has been increasing year by year ever since 1990. The Asian Epidemic Modelling (AEM), conducted in 2015, reconfirmed th...
Authors: Anne Bergenstrom, Baseer Achakzai, Sofia Furqan, Manzoor ul Haq, Rajwal Khan and Marc Saba
People who inject drugs (PWID) are at increased HIV transmission risk because of unsafe injecting practices and a host of other individual, network, and structural factors. Thus, PWID have a great need for ser...
Authors: Richard D. Pierce, Jennifer Hegle, Keith Sabin, Edo Agustian, Lisa G. Johnston, Stephen Mills and Catherine S. Todd
Methadone maintenance treatment programs (MMTPs) are important public health intervention to control the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the drug use problems. For expanding treatment coverage, publicly...
Women who inject drugs (WWID) are neglected globally in research and programming yet may be likelier than males to practise sexual and injecting risks and be infected with HIV and more stigmatised but seek few...
Authors: Oanh TH Khuat, Martha Morrow, Trang NN Nguyen and Gregory Armstrong
There is an estimate of three to five million people who inject drugs living in Asia. Unsafe injecting drug use is a major driver of both the HIV and hepatitis C (HCV) epidemic in this region, and an increase ...
