Looking into the black mirror of the overdose crisis: Assessing the harms of collaborative surveillance technologies in the United States response.

Drug overdose is a leading cause of death among adults in the United States, prompting calls for more surveillance data and data sharing across public health and law enforcement to address the crisis. This paper integrates Black feminist science and technology studies (STS) into an anthropological analysis of the collision of public health, policing, and technology as embedded in the US National Overdose Response Strategy and its technological innovation, the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP). The dystopian Netflix series "Black Mirror," which explores the seemingly useful but quietly destructive potential of technology, offers a lens through which to speculate upon and anticipate the harms of collaborative surveillance projects.

Health, harm reduction, and social service providers' perspectives on the appropriateness and feasibility of peer distribution of HIV self-test kits among people who use drugs.

Background: People who use drugs (PWUD) experience elevated HIV risk and numerous barriers to facility-based HIV testing. HIV self-testing (HIVST) could circumvent many of those barriers and is acceptable among PWUD, yet HIVST implementation for PWUD is limited. Service providers' perspectives on specific HIVST delivery strategies could help increase availability for PWUD.

Social support and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic among a cohort of people living with HIV (PLWH) in Western Kenya.

As coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic in 2020, countries around the world implemented various prevention strategies, such as banning of public and social gatherings, restriction in movement, etc. These efforts may have had a deleterious effect on already vulnerable populations, including people living with HIV (PLWH). PLWH were concerned about contracting COVID-19, the impact of COVID-19 on their social networks that provide social support, and the continued availability of antiretroviral medications during the pandemic.

Learning from women who trade sex in Kenya about the antiblackness of Global Health.

Sex work and violence have become co-constituted, routinized, and even sanitized in Global Health journals dispassionately advocating for intervention. This paper situates ethnographically shared experiences of Kenyan sex working women within the global condition of antiblackness. By grounding our conceptual analytic in Black Feminist scholarship, we illustrate how antiblackness subtends the conditions of possibility for women's entry into sex work, their subsequent experiences with interpersonal and institutional forms of predatory violence, and lack of recourse for their material needs and suffering.

Hepatitis C antibody prevalence, correlates and barriers to care among people who inject drugs in Central California.

Hepatitis C (HCV) infection among people who inject drugs (PWID) is a major public health concern. We examined correlates of HCV antibody (anti-HCV) seropositivity and characteristics of prior HCV testing and treatment among PWID in Fresno, California, which has among the highest prevalence of injection drug use (IDU) in the United States. We surveyed 494 peer-recruited PWID (≥18 years of age) in 2016 about their experiences with HCV testing and treatment, and conducted HCV and HIV antibody testing for all participants.

Mobile phone and internet use among people who inject drugs: Implications for mobile health interventions.

Mobile health (mHealth) interventions have the potential to improve substance use treatment engagement and outcomes, and to reduce risk behaviors among people who inject drugs (PWID). However, there are few studies assessing mobile technology use among PWID and none have investigated continuity of mobile phone use. : We surveyed 494 PWID.

A community-based study of abscess self-treatment and barriers to medical care among people who inject drugs in the United States.

Skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs) are the most common medical complication of injection drug use in the United States, though little work has been done assessing SSTI treatment among people who inject drugs (PWID). We examined past-3-month abscess characteristics, treatment utilization, and barriers to medical treatment among N = 494 community-recruited PWID. We used descriptive statistics to determine the frequencies of self-treatment and medical treatment for their most recent past-3-month abscess as well as barriers to seeking medical treatment.

Consider the Source: Associations between Syringe Sources and Risky Injection Behaviors in California's Central Valley.

Background: Sterile syringe access is critical to prevent serious viral and bacterial infections among people who inject drugs (PWID) but many areas across the United States lack sufficient access. Although California law allows nonprescription pharmacy syringe sales and syringe services programs (SSPs), access gaps remain in the largely rural Central Valley.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine syringe access and related injection behaviors among PWID in Fresno, California.

Conceptualizing stigma in contexts of pregnancy and opioid misuse: A qualitative study with women and healthcare providers in Ohio.

Background: Women with histories of opioid misuse face drug-related stigma, which can be amplified during pregnancy. While women are often blamed for their drug use and urged to change, the social contexts that create and reinforce stigma are largely unchallenged. Drawing on a multidimensional model of stigma, we examine how stigma manifested across women's pregnancy journeys to shape access and quality of care.

"Violence and love and drugs…it all goes hand in hand": A mixed methods analysis of the substance abuse, violence, and HIV/AIDS syndemic among women who use methamphetamine.

The synergistic epidemics of substance use, violence, and HIV/AIDS, also known as the SAVA syndemic, disproportionately affects vulnerable women in the United States. Methamphetamine use is closely linked with physical and sexual violence, including intimate partner violence (IPV), which heightens women's vulnerability to HIV. This mixed methods study examined the prevalence and correlates of violence among women who use methamphetamine, ( = 209) enrolled in an HIV intervention study in San Diego, California.

Intersectional structural vulnerability to abusive policing among people who inject drugs: A mixed methods assessment in California's central valley.

Background: Abusive and violent policing is an important determinant of health for people who inject drugs (PWID), which has been linked to structural vulnerability. However, further exploration of the intersectional nature of this vulnerability is warranted. California's Central Valley is a largely rural/suburban and politically conservative area, with high rates of injection drug use and overdose mortality, where rates of abusive policing of PWID have not been characterized.

Sharing Research, Building Possibility: Reflecting on Research with Men Who Have Sex with Men in Kenya.

Sharing our research with participants and communities is a standard and critically important ethical practice in anthropology, but do we use such opportunities to their full potential? In this article, I reflect on the possibilities generated by a community dissemination event to share my research with men who have sex with men and engage in sex work in Kisumu, Kenya. Drawing on Arjun Apaddurai's concept of an "ethics of possibility" that pushes beyond ordinary ethical practice, I reflect upon engagement with participants in the research process and advocate for greater emphasis on research dissemination events as a strategy to make research more meaningful to communities. Although my project was initially framed around HIV, what emerged were men's desire for spirituality, belonging, and new possibilities of inclusive citizenship that better attend to men's health and well-being.

Syringe access and health harms: Characterizing "landscapes of antagonism" in California's Central Valley.

Background: Sterile syringe access reduces injection-related health harms, yet access in the U.S. remains grossly inadequate.

Precarious hope and reframing risk behavior from the ground up: insight from ethnographic research with Rwandan urban refugees in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Background: Theoretical and methodological research on risk-taking practices often frames risk as an individual choice. While risk does occur at individual level, it is determined by aspirations which are connected to others and society. For many displaced women globally, these aspirations are often linked to the well-being of their children and other household members.

PrEP and the syndemic of substance use, violence, and HIV among female and male sex workers: a qualitative study in Kisumu, Kenya.

Introduction: Female and male sex workers experience heightened vulnerability to HIV and other health harms that are compounded by substance use, physical and sexual violence, and limited access to health services. In Kisumu, Kenya, where sex work is widespread and substance use is a growing public health concern, offering pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention could help curtail the HIV epidemic. Our study examines "syndemics," or mutually reinforcing epidemics of substance use, violence and HIV, in relation to PrEP acceptability and feasibility among female and male sex workers in Kenya, one of the first African countries to approve PrEP for HIV prevention.

Research priorities to inform "Treat All" policy implementation for people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa: a consensus statement from the International epidemiology Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA).

Introduction: "Treat All" - the treatment of all people with HIV, irrespective of disease stage or CD4 cell count - represents a paradigm shift in HIV care that has the potential to end AIDS as a public health threat. With accelerating implementation of Treat All in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), there is a need for a focused agenda and research to identify and inform strategies for promoting timely uptake of HIV treatment, retention in care, and sustained viral suppression and addressing bottlenecks impeding implementation.

Methods: The Delphi approach was used to develop consensus around research priorities for Treat All implementation in SSA.

You can't do this job when you are sober: Heroin use among female sex workers and the need for comprehensive drug treatment programming in Kenya.

Aims: Globally, women who use drugs often practice sex work and experience multiple health and social harms that complicate their drug treatment needs. In East Africa, understanding the emergence of heroin use among women is critical in efforts to build effective drug treatment programming, including the ongoing scale-up of medication-assisted treatment (MAT). We explored heroin use among women engaged in sex work in Kenya to inform services.

Substance use and universal access to HIV testing and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa: implications and research priorities.

As universal testing and treatment for HIV, or 'treat all', expands across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), substance use will likely have a negative impact on the success of scale-up efforts for antiretroviral treatment (ART). Overwhelming evidence highlights the negative impact of substance use on HIV care and treatment outcomes. Yet, as many countries in SSA expand ART, evidence of the extent of substance use, and its impact in the region, is more limited.

A mixed methods study of the social support networks of female sex workers and their primary noncommercial male partners in Tijuana, Mexico.

Female sex workers (FSWs) are at risk for multiple health harms, including HIV. This article describes a mixed methods study of the social support networks of 19 FSWs and their primary male sex partners in Tijuana, Mexico. We collected quantitative and qualitative social network data, including quantitative network measures, qualitative narratives, and network visualizations.

Conceptualizing Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome as a Cascade of Care: A Qualitative Study With Healthcare Providers in Ohio.

Background: The opioid epidemic remains a serious issue in the United States and presents additional challenges for women of childbearing age. An increasingly common complication of opioid use is neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), or infant withdrawal from in utero exposure to opioids.

Purpose: The objective of our qualitative study was to identify service needs and barriers to care in the NAS epidemic in Ohio, which has among the highest rates of opioid use and NAS in the nation.

Intimate Partner Violence Among Female Sex Workers and Their Noncommercial Male Partners in Mexico: A Mixed-Methods Study.

Utilizing mixed methods, we examined intimate partner violence (IPV) behaviors among 428 female sex workers (FSWs) who use drugs and their noncommercial male partners in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Half of all participants reported perpetrating and experiencing at least one type of IPV behavior in the past year. In interviews, drug use emerged as an important theme associated with IPV behaviors, and we found men and women differed in their motivations for engaging in IPV behaviors.

Correlates of Rectal Douching Practices Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in Kenya.

Background: Among men who have sex with men (MSM), rectal douching (RD) has been associated with increased prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus and other sexually transmitted infections. Substances commonly used for RD, especially water-based solutions, could disrupt the rectal epithelium and increase susceptibility to infection. The few existing reports on RD among MSM are primarily in middle- and high-income settings, and to date, no study has focused on RD among MSM in Africa.

Stigma at every turn: Health services experiences among people who inject drugs.

Background: People who inject drugs (PWID) encounter varying forms of stigma in health services contexts, which can contribute to adverse outcomes. We explored the lived experience of stigma among PWID to elucidate pathways by which stigma influences health care access and utilization.

Methods: We conducted 46 qualitative interviews with PWID in California's Central Valley between March and December 2015, as part of a multi-phase, multi-method study examining implementation of a new pharmacy syringe access law.

'He's not my pimp': toward an understanding of intimate male partner involvement in female sex work at the Mexico-US border.

Female sex work is often perceived as women being controlled by men. We used surveys and qualitative interviews with female sex workers and their intimate partners in two Northern Mexico cities to examine couples' own perceptions of their relationships and male partners' involvement in sex work. Among 214 couples, the median age was 34 and relationship duration was approximately 3 years.