Project dates: July 2005 - March 2011
While much is known about specific behaviors and the contexts that facilitate HIV and HCV transmission among injection drug users (IDUs), very little is known about the ways in which IDUs remain uninfected over the long term. This project determined the resources, practices and prevention strategies and tactics that help IDUs avoid becoming infected with HIV and HCV, as well as the obstacles they face and how these obstacles are overcome. Detailed life history interviews were conducted with long-term current IDUs to describe and compare those who were infected with either HIV and HCV to those who were not infected with either virus. The results from the project provided the basis for developing a new generation of HIV and HCV prevention programs for IDUs who are unable to quit injecting, to develop strategies to avoid infection, as well as improve existing prevention and treatment programming.
Abstract on NIH RePORTERDignity denial and social conflicts
Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of Economics, Culture & Society, 27 (1), 65-84. doi: 10.1080/08935696.2014.980675.
Meylakhs P, Friedman SR, Mateu-Gelabert P, Sandoval M, Meylakhs N (2015).
Taking care of themselves: How long-term injection drug users remain HIV and hepatitis C free
Sociology of Health and Illness, 37 (4), 626-641. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.12226. PMCID: PMC4478155.
Mateu-Gelabert P, Gwadz MV, Guarino H, Sandoval M, Cleland CM, Jordan A, Hagan H, Lune H, Friedman SR (2014).
The Staying Safe Intervention: Training people who inject drugs in strategies to avoid injection-related HCV and HIV infection
AIDS Education and Prevention, 26 (2), 144-157. doi: 10.1521/aeap.2014.26.2.144. PMCID: PMC4039031.
Friedman SR, Mateu-Gelabert P, Sandoval M, Meylakhs P (2013).
Staying Safe: How you and others might avoid becoming infected with hepatitis C or HIV
Black Poppy Magazine.
Vazan P, Mateu-Gelabert P, Cleland CM, Sandoval M, Friedman SR (2012).
Correlates of staying safe behaviors among long-term injection drug users: Psychometric evaluation of the staying safe questionnaire
AIDS and Behavior, 16 (6), 1471481. doi: 10.1007/s10461-011-0079-8. PMCID: PMC3402642.
Friedman SR, Mateu-Gelabert P, Sandoval M (2011).
Group sex events amongst non-gay drug users: An understudied risk environment
International Journal of Drug Policy, 22 (1), 1-8. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2010.06.004. PMCID: PMC3019255.
Friedman SR, Sandoval M, Mateu-Gelabert P, Meylakhs P, Des Jarlais DC (2011).
Symbiotic goals and the prevention of blood-borne viruses among injection drug users
Substance Use and Misuse, 46 (2-3), 307-315. doi: 10.3109/10826084.2011.523316. PMCID: PMC3141294.
Mateu-Gelabert P, Sandoval M, Meylakhs P, Wendel T, Friedman SR (2010).
Strategies to avoid opiate withdrawal: Implications for HCV and HIV risks
International Journal of Drug Policy, 21 (3), 179-185. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2009.08.007. PMCID: PMC2847014.
Friedman SR, Mateu-Gelabert P, Sandoval M, Hagan H, Des Jarlais DC (2008).
Positive deviance control-case life history: A method to develop grounded hypotheses about successful long-term avoidance of infection
BMC Public Health, 8, 94. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-8-94. PMCID: PMC2329618.
Friedman SR, de Jong W, Rossi D, Touze G, Rockwell R, Des Jarlais DC, Elovich R (2007).
Harm reduction theory: Users’ culture, micro-social indigenous harm reduction, and the self-organization and outside-organizing of users’ groups
International Journal of Drug Policy, 18 (2), 107-117. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2006.11.006. PMCID: PMC1945155.
Mateu-Gelabert P, Friedman SR, Sandoval M (2007).
Pincharse sin infectarse: Estrategias para prevenir la infeccion por el VIH y el VHC entre usuarios de drogas inyectables
Trastornos Adictivos, 9 (4), 260-268. doi: 10.1016/S1575-0973(07)75655-6.
Mateu-Gelabert P, Treloar C, Calatayud VA, Sandoval M, Zurian JC, Maher L, Rhodes T, Friedman SR (2007).
How can hepatitis C be prevented in the long term?
International Journal of Drug Policy, 18 (5), 338-340. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2007.06.001. PMCID: PMC2117625.
Friedman SR, Rossi D, Flom PL (2006).
“Big events” and networks
Connections, 27 (1), 9-14.