A qualitative investigation of antiretroviral therapy among injection drug users.

Recent advances in antiretroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS have improved the quality of life and life expectancies of many with this fatal disease. Nevertheless, a significant proportion of individuals from disadvantaged groups, which traditionally have had difficulty accessing high-quality health care in the United States, have not benefited from these treatments. For example, injection drug users (IDUs), now a principal source of new cases of AIDS, have received antiretroviral therapy at significantly lower rates than other groups.

Onset of major depressive disorder among adolescents.

Objectives: To examine the association between parental affective disorders and psychoactive substance use disorders and the onset of major depressive disorder (MDD) among adolescents and young adults and to determine whether this association is affected by stressful life events, family cohesion, self-esteem, or gender.

Method: Prospective cohort study of 804 adolescents, aged 11-17 years, and their parents who were followed for seven consecutive years. The sample was drawn from the Minneapolis-St.

HIV risk behaviors in African-American drug injector networks: implications of injection-partner mixing and partnership characteristics.

Aims: We explore the mechanisms by which 'partnership-level' variables--the mix of characteristics of individuals who inject drugs together--affect the incidence of HIV risk behaviors, including receptive syringe sharing, and facilitate or impede the spread of HIV.

Design: We apply multivariate analysis techniques to data on injection partnerships (pairs of individuals who inject drugs together) collected using a network sample of 401 African-American IDUs in Washington, DC.

Findings: Drug injectors tended to select injection partners of the same gender and similar age, but risk behaviors were most common in partnerships between individuals who are dissimilar in both gender and age.

Parental substance use disorder and the risk of adolescent drug abuse: an event history analysis.

A common observation in the research literature is that children of drug-dependent parents are at significantly heightened risk of adolescent drug use, abuse, and dependence. Recent research indicates that several psychological and interpersonal factors may affect the association between parents' psychoactive substance use disorder (PSUD) and drug use risks among adolescents, yet studies have failed to examine explicitly whether these factors moderate the association between PSUD and adolescent substance abuse. This paper explores these potential relationships using longitudinal data from a study that has followed three cohorts of adolescents and their families over a 7-year period.