Improved injection network ascertainment with supplementary elicitation techniques.

Prior research indicates that injection drug users forget substantial proportions of their injection partners when asked to recall them. Such under-reporting hampers both ascertainment of the injection networks that underlie transmission of blood-borne pathogens and contact-tracing efforts for disease control. We report here an evaluation of supplementary elicitation techniques--a set of prompting strategies and recall cues--employed in a study that involved tracing of injection partners.

Social structural and behavioral underpinnings of hyperendemic hepatitis C virus transmission in drug injectors.

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is hyperendemic in drug injectors, yet social structural and behavioral factors underlying transmission are not well established.

Methods: We conducted a case-control study of HCV seroconversion in drug injectors, focusing on transmission within networks. Incident case subjects (n=17) and seronegative control subjects (n=42) reported injection and sex partners and referred as many as 5 for interviewing and blood testing.

Case-reporting of acute hepatitis B and C among injection drug users.

Although public health surveillance system data are widely used to describe the epidemiology of communicable disease, occurrence of hepatitis B and C virus (HBV and HCV, respectively) infections may be misrepresented by under-reporting in injection drug users (IDUs). This study was carried out to examine the relationship between HBV and HCV incidence and case-reporting of hepatitis B and C in Seattle IDUs. Names of participants in a Seattle IDU cohort study who acquired HBV or HCV infection over a 12-month follow-up period were compared to a database of persons with acute hepatitis B and C reported to the health department surveillance unit over the same period.