14.12.2012 Views

The Context of HIV Risk Among Drug Users and Their Sexual Partners

The Context of HIV Risk Among Drug Users and Their Sexual Partners

The Context of HIV Risk Among Drug Users and Their Sexual Partners

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

Patient: “Why should it? It’s just one more negative problem to add<br />

to the others. Things are already bad, this is not going to<br />

make it much worse!”<br />

<strong>The</strong>se dialogs put faces behind reported statistics. As <strong>of</strong> December 1992,<br />

among women ages 15 to 24, 912 deaths from acquired<br />

immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) had been reported to the Centers for<br />

Disease Control <strong>and</strong> Prevention (CDC). <strong>Among</strong> those 25 to 34 years <strong>of</strong><br />

age, 7,346 deaths from AIDS had been reported; for women in age<br />

groups 35 to 44, 45 to 54, <strong>and</strong> those 55 years or older, reported deaths<br />

from AIDS were 5,924, 1,728, <strong>and</strong> 1,556, respectively. <strong>The</strong>se numbers<br />

represent increases in AIDS death rates across all age categories for<br />

women (Centers for Disease Control <strong>and</strong> Prevention 1993a).<br />

CDC (1993b) has described a number <strong>of</strong> characteristics associated with<br />

females with the highest incidence <strong>of</strong> AIDS. <strong>The</strong>se characteristics<br />

included being <strong>of</strong> African-American or Hispanic heritage, current or past<br />

injection drug use, being a non-IDU, <strong>and</strong> engaging in high-risk sexual<br />

activity with IDUs or other <strong>HIV</strong>-infected persons. In addition, women<br />

with AIDS tend to be poor <strong>and</strong> <strong>of</strong> disadvantaged socioeconomic status<br />

(Ickovics <strong>and</strong> Rodin 1992).<br />

Injecting drugs <strong>and</strong> having sex without condoms are the two primary<br />

behaviors that researchers have focused on <strong>and</strong> described as being high<br />

risk in the transmission <strong>of</strong> <strong>HIV</strong> among female drug abusers. Much <strong>of</strong><br />

what is known about injecting drug use <strong>and</strong> unsafe sex as related to <strong>HIV</strong><br />

transmission among female drug users is descriptive epidemiology.<br />

When designing <strong>and</strong> analyzing studies, many researchers report<br />

information that describes how many women were exposed through<br />

specified behaviors, their levels <strong>of</strong> knowledge about the disease, or<br />

whether certain interventions changed the number <strong>of</strong> high-risk behaviors.<br />

However, there is a lack <strong>of</strong> information regarding the underlying factors<br />

or contextual issues that contribute to drug-using women’s exposing<br />

themselves to <strong>HIV</strong>. Information regarding the emotional, psychological,<br />

familial, <strong>and</strong> social-environmental contexts in which <strong>HIV</strong> transmission<br />

behaviors take place would yield data that would give insight into the<br />

motivations for continued behavior. As a result, the data would provide<br />

direction for developing effective interventions for decreasing risk<br />

behaviors.<br />

Some researchers have access to subjects to ask for this type <strong>of</strong> data, but<br />

their research questions do not focus on contextual issues. Some may<br />

49

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!