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.

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.