Substance Abuse Treatment Utilization, HIV Risk Behaviors, and Recruitment Among Suburban Injection Drug Users in Long Island, New York

• Published in: AIDS and behavior Vol. 18; no. Suppl 3; pp. 305 - 315
• Main Authors: Watson, Carol-Ann, Weng, Charlene Xuelin, French, Tyler, Anderson, Bridget J., Nemeth, Chris, McNutt, Louise-Anne, Smith, Lou C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston Springer US 01-04-2014; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome; Adult; Behavior; Cross-Sectional Studies; Drug abuse; Drug Injection; Drug Users - statistics & numerical data; Female; Health Care Services; Health Psychology; Health risks; HIV; HIV Infections - epidemiology; HIV Infections - prevention & control; Human immunodeficiency virus; Humans; Infectious Diseases; Injection; Interviews as Topic; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Middle Aged; Multivariate Analysis; Needle Sharing; New York - epidemiology; Original Paper; Patient Selection; Prevention; Public Health; Recruitment; Risk; Risk factors; Risk taking; Substance Abuse; Substance abuse treatment; Substance Abuse Treatment Centers - utilization; Substance Abuse, Intravenous - epidemiology; Substance-Related Disorders - complications; Substance-Related Disorders - therapy; Surveillance; Treatment; Urban Population - statistics & numerical data; Young Adult; New York; Long Island New York; United States > US; Respondent driven sampling; HIV; Latent class analysis; Injection drug users
• ISSN: 1090-7165; 1573-3254
• DOI: 10.1007/s10461-013-0512-2

Prevention and treatment of injection drug use remains a public health concern. We used data from the 2005 Centers for Disease Control and prevention National HIV Behavioral Surveillance system to assess substance abuse treatment utilization, risk behaviors, and recruitment processes in a respondent driven sample of suburban injectors. Twelve service utilization and injection risk variables were analyzed using latent class analysis. Three latent classes were identified: low use, low risk; low use, high risk; and high use, moderate/high risk. In multivariate analysis, annual income <$15,000 (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 8.19 [95 % confidence interval (CI), 3.83–17.51]) and self-reported hepatitis C virus infection (aOR = 4.32, 95 % CI (1.84–10.17)) were significantly associated with class membership. Homophily, a measure of preferential recruitment showed that injectors with recent treatment utilization appear a more cohesive group than out-of-treatment injectors. Preferentially reaching injection drug users with high risk behaviors and no recent drug treatment history via respondent driven sampling will require future research.