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
The Pacific is characterised as a region for the purposes of many international interventions and assistance programmes. Representatives of Pacific States participate in regional fora to build a strategic and ...
Authors: Robert Power, Lucina Schmich and Vili Nosa
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...
As a dual response to the HIV epidemic and the high level of injecting drug use in Vietnam, the Ministry of Health (MOH) initiated a pilot methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) program in Hai Phong and Ho Chi Mi...
Authors: Tran Vu Hoang, Tran Thi Thanh Ha, Tran Minh Hoang, Nguyen To Nhu, Nguyen Cuong Quoc, Nguyen thi Minh Tam and Stephen Mills
Drug users and female sex workers are among the groups most vulnerable to HIV infection in Vietnam. To address the HIV epidemic within these communities, former drug users and sex workers established the first...
Authors: Leah T. Le, Lauretta E. Grau, Huong H. Nguyen, Oanh Hai T. Khuat and Robert Heimer
“Low dead space” syringes with permanently attached needles retain less fluid, blood, and HIV after use than standard “high dead space” syringes. This reduces the probability of HIV transmission if they are sh...
Authors: William A. Zule, Alisher Latypov, David Otiashvili, Irma Kirtadze, Umedjon Ibragimov and Georgiy V. Bobashev
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
China, as other Southeast Asian countries, has witnessed an increased use in amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) amongst urban youth. Amongst female adolescents who both sell sex and use ATS, risk behaviours are...
Authors: Xu-Dong Zhang, Angela Kelly-Hanku, Jia-Jia Chai, Jian Luo, Marleen Temmerman and Stanley Luchters
In Cambodia, HIV prevalence among female entertainment and sex workers (FESW) is up to twenty times higher than in the general population. Use of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) has been associated with incr...
Authors: Thomas Crewe Dixon, Song Ngak, Ellen Stein, Adam Carrico, Kimberly Page and Lisa Maher
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 ...
Evidence indicates that detention of people who use drugs in compulsory centers in the name of treatment is common in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam....
Authors: Pascal Tanguay, Adeeba Kamarulzaman, Apinun Aramrattana, Alex Wodak, Nicholas Thomson, Robert Ali, Gino Vumbaca, Gloria Lai and Anand Chabungbam
The low-threshold methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) programme in Hong Kong has been in place for about 40 years. Assessment of the participation pattern of methadone users may inform future programme devel...
Authors: Tsz Ho Kwan, Ngai Sze Wong and Shui Shan Lee
Armed conflict may increase the risk of HIV and other pathogens among injecting drug users (IDUs); however, there are few prospective studies. This study aimed to measure incidence and potential predictors, in...
Authors: Catherine S. Todd, Abdul Nasir, Mohammad Raza Stanekzai, Katja Fiekert, Heather L. Sipsma, David Vlahov and Steffanie A. Strathdee
Debate about medical cannabis legalization are typically informed by three beliefs: (1) cannabis has medical effects, (2) medical cannabis is addictive and (3) medical cannabis legalization leads to increased ...
Authors: Sharon R. Sznitman and Anne Line Bretteville-Jensen
Prior research has examined access to syringe exchange program (SEP) services among persons who inject drugs (PWID), but no research has been conducted to evaluate variations in SEP access based on season. Thi...
Authors: Sean T. Allen, Monica S. Ruiz, Amira Roess and Jeff Jones
Despite empirical support for the individual and public health benefits of treating substance use disorders (SUDs) , access to these services is impeded by several barriers. Although many studies on access bar...
Authors: Deborah Isobell, Kamal Kamaloodien and Shazly Savahl
Integrating and decentralizing services are essential to increase the accessibility and provide comprehensive care for methadone patients. Moreover, they assure the sustainability of a HIV/AIDS prevention prog...
Authors: Bach Xuan Tran, Long Hoang Nguyen, Huong Thu Thi Phan, Linh Khanh Nguyen and Carl A. Latkin
Kabul has over 12,000 people who inject drugs (PWID), most of them heroin users, and opioid substitution therapy has recently been introduced as an effective method to reduce opioid use. We aimed to evaluate a...
Authors: Horacio Ruiseñor-Escudero, Alexander Vu, Andrea L Wirtz, Itziar Familiar-Lopez, Mark Berry, Iliassou Mfochive, Cyrus Engineer, Ahmad Farhad, Senop Tschakarjan, Ernst Wisse, Feda M Paikan and Gilbert Burnham
Heroin injection is emerging as a significant dimension of the HIV epidemic in Kenya. Preventing transitions to injecting drug use from less harmful forms of use, such as smoking, is a potentially important fo...
Authors: Andy Guise, Margarita Dimova, James Ndimbii, Phil Clark and Tim Rhodes
Community stakeholders express a range of opinions about supervised injection facilities (SIFs). We sought to identify reasons for ambivalence about SIFs amongst community stakeholders in two Canadian cities.
Authors: Carol Strike, Tara Marie Watson, Gillian Kolla, Rebecca Penn and Ahmed M. Bayoumi
The leading cause of adult injury death in the USA is drug overdose, the majority of which involves prescription opioid medications. Outside of the USA, deaths by drug overdose are also on the rise, and overdo...
Authors: Traci C. Green, Emily F Dauria, Jeffrey Bratberg, Corey S. Davis and Alexander Y Walley
Despite the growing attention surrounding crack cocaine use in Brazil, little is understood about crack users’ histories, use patterns and the interplay of drug-use behaviors, settings, and access/barriers to ...
Authors: Noa Krawczyk, Carlos Linhares Veloso Filho and Francisco I. Bastos
Injecting drug use (IDU) is a strong predictor of recidivism and re-incarceration in ex-prisoners. Although the links between drug use and crime are well documented, studies examining post-release criminal act...
Authors: Amy Kirwan, Brendan Quinn, Rebecca Winter, Stuart A. Kinner, Paul Dietze and Mark Stoové
Tobacco products differ in their relative health harms. The need for educating consumers about such harms is growing as different tobacco products enter the marketplace and as the FDA moves to regulate and edu...
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) accounts for 15,000 deaths in the United States yearly because people living with HCV are not identified in time to seek treatment, are ineligible for or refuse treatment, or face struc...
Authors: Stella A. Safo, Abigail Batchelder, Deena Peyser and Alain H. Litwin
Khat is a green leaf with amphetamine-like effects. It is primarily used among people in Africa, the Middle East and in the diaspora communities from these countries. Prior to the prohibition of khat in the UK...
Authors: Saba Kassim, Asha Dalsania, Johan Nordgren, Axel Klein and Josh Hulbert
Harm reduction case management relies on client-identified goals to drive the provision of care in order to “meet clients where they are at”. This research measured the level of agreement between client-identi...
Authors: Allison O’Rourke, Monica S. Ruiz and Sean T. Allen
Syringe sharing continues to be a major driver of the HIV pandemic. In light of efforts to enhance access to sterile syringes and promote secondary prevention among HIV-positive individuals, we sought to ident...
Authors: Pauline Voon, Kanna Hayashi, Lianping Ti, Karyn Kaplan, Paisan Suwannawong, Evan Wood and Thomas Kerr
Although a growing body of evidence suggests that low dead space syringes may reduce the risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Hepatitis C virus infection associated with sharing syringes among people...
Authors: Ngo Thi Thanh Huong, Gary Mundy, Josselyn Neukom, William Zule, Nguyen Minh Tuan and Nguyen Minh Tam
As with many Indigenous groups around the world, Aboriginal communities in Canada face significant challenges with trauma and substance use. The complexity of symptoms that accompany intergenerational trauma a...
Authors: Teresa Naseba Marsh, Diana Coholic, Sheila Cote-Meek and Lisa M Najavits
