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North America is currently in the grips of a crisis rooted in the use of licit and illicit opioid-based analgesics. Drug overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in Canada and the US, and the growing ...
People who inject drugs (PWID) frequently engage in injection risk behaviours exposing them to blood-borne infections. Understanding the underlying causes that drive various types and levels of risk behaviours...
Patients with substance use disorders grow older thanks to effective treatments. Together with a high prevalence of comorbidities, psychological problems, and low social support, these patients are at high ris...
Studies on contraceptive use by patients with substance use disorders (SUD) show a concerning low use of contraception. Mainly conducted in USA, they could be irrelevant to patients attending European SUD trea...
Youth substance use programming and educational strategies are frequently informed by prevention approaches that emphasize abstinence goals, which often do not resonate with youth in their lack of acknowledgme...
Given the current opioid crisis around the world, harm reduction agencies are seeking to help people who use drugs to do so more safely. Many harm reduction agencies are exploring techniques to test illicit dr...
The history of harm reduction in the USA has led to the development of some of the most important methods for treating persons for drug use disorders, such as methadone and buprenorphine for opiate use disorde...
In Canada, funding, administration, and delivery of health services—including those targeting people who use drugs—are primarily the responsibility of the provinces and territories. Access to harm reduction se...
Gambling has quickly emerged as an important global public health issue. With new technologies used to develop high intensity gambling products and promotions aimed at driving consumption, public health organi...
There is good evidence to suggest that performance and image enhancing drug (PIED) use is increasing in Australia and that there is an increase in those using PIEDs who have never used another illicit substanc...
The Golden Crescent region of South Asia—comprising Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan—is a principal global site for opium production and distribution. Over the past few decades, war, terrorism, and a shifting p...
Supervised injection services (SIS) have been shown to reduce the public- and individual-level harms associated with injection drug use. While SIS feasibility research has been conducted in large urban centres...
In 2015, the Australian government launched the media campaign Ice Destroys Lives targeting crystal methamphetamine use. Previous research indicates mass media campaigns may have harmful effects for people engage...
New, more effective and better-tolerated therapies for hepatitis C (HCV) have made the elimination of HCV a feasible objective. However, for this to be achieved, it is necessary to have a detailed understandin...
Kyrgyzstan, where HIV is concentrated in prisons and driven by injection drug use, provides a prison-based methadone maintenance therapy program as well as abstinence-oriented therapeutic community based on th...
The original article was published in Harm Reduction Journal 2017 14:16
Personal networks are significant social spaces to spread of HIV or other blood-borne infections among hard-to-reach population, viz., injecting drug users, female sex workers, etc. Sharing of infected needles...
Women who inject drugs (WWID) are at heightened risk for HIV due to biological, behavioral, and structural factors. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) could aid in HIV prevention for WWID. However, little is know...
Harm reduction interventions in Cambodia face numerous obstacles because of conflicting understanding and interests and inconsistencies in the implementation by law enforcement officials. This study aims to ex...
WHO, UNODC, and UNAIDS recommend a comprehensive package for prevention, treatment, and care of HIV among people who inject drugs (PWID). We describe the uptake of services and the cost of implementing a compr...
Harm reduction policies and attitudes in the United States have advanced substantially in recent years but still lag behind more advanced jurisdictions in Europe and elsewhere. The Obama administration, partic...
The original article was published in Harm Reduction Journal 2017 14:27
Stigma, criminalisation and a lack of data on drug use contribute to the “invisibility” of people who inject drugs (PWID) and make HIV prevention and treatment service delivery challenging. We aimed to confirm...
Take home naloxone (THN) programs reduce mortality by training bystanders to respond to opioid overdoses. Clinical observation by the health care team at the Inner City Youth (ICY) program indicated that young...
The HIV epidemic among people who inject drugs (PWID) in Russia continues to spread. This exploratory study examines how HIV-prevention measures are perceived and experienced by PWID in the northwestern region...
Injection drug use is associated with HIV and hepatitis C transmission, overdose, and other preventable harms. These harms are heightened for structurally vulnerable injection drug-using populations, as their ...
Housing First is an evidence-based practice intended to serve chronically homeless individuals with co-occurring serious mental illness and substance use disorders. Despite housing active substance users, harm...
Canada has long contended with harms arising from injection drug use. In response to epidemics of HIV infection and overdose in Vancouver in the mid-1990s, a range of actors advocated for the creation of super...
This article highlights the experiences of a peer-run group, SALOME/NAOMI Association of Patients (SNAP), that meets weekly in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. SNAP is a unique ind...
The Erratum to this article has been published in Harm Reduction Journal 2017 14:36
Little is known about access to health insurance among people who inject drugs (PWID) who attend syringe exchange programs (SEPs). The goal of the current study was to assess perceptions of SEP staff, includin...
Previous research on the effectiveness of needle exchange programs (NEP) in preventing hepatitis C virus (HCV) in people who inject drugs (PWID) has shown mixed findings. The purpose of this study was to use t...
In Baltimore, MD, as in many cities throughout the USA, overdose rates are on the rise due to both the increase of prescription opioid abuse and that of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids in the drug market....
Syringe sharing is a high-risk practice associated with the transmission of infectious diseases, such as HIV and HCV. While youth who contend with housing instability are known to be more likely to engage in h...
The majority of Americans with opioid use disorder remain out of treatment. Operating in 33 states, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico, harm reduction agencies, which provide sterile syringes and other health serv...
The perspectives of people who use drugs are critical in understanding why people choose to reduce harm in relation to drug use, what practices are considered or preferred in conceptualizations of harm reducti...
People who smoke crack cocaine experience a wide variety of health-related issues. However, public health programming designed for this population is limited, particularly in comparison with programming for pe...
The health of people who use drugs (PWUD) is characterized by multimorbidity and chronicity of health conditions, necessitating an understanding of their health care utilization. The objective of this study wa...
The Erratum to this article has been published in Harm Reduction Journal 2017 14:42
There is a need for creative, public health-oriented solutions to the increasingly intractable problems associated with the North American opioid epidemic. This epidemic is a fundamentally continental problem,...
Injection drug use has not been well documented in American Indians living in the USA. American Indian and Alaskan Natives (AI/ANs) show higher rates of substance use compared to the general population, and ha...
Globally, methamphetamine (MA) use is a significant public health concern due to unprecedented health effects of its use. However, gender similarities and differences in early age of MA initiation and its risk...
This research sought to explore whether children’s visual and auditory exposure to Electronic Gambling Machines (EGMs) in community clubs contributed to shaping their attitudes towards these types of potential...
Despite advances in our knowledge of effective services for people who use drugs over the last decades globally, coverage remains poor in most countries, while quality is often unknown. This paper aims to disc...
The original article was published in Harm Reduction Journal 2017 14:6
While opiate substitution therapy and injecting equipment provision (IEP) have reduced blood-borne viruses (BBV) among people who inject drugs (PWID), some PWID continue to share injecting equipment and acquir...
Supervised injection facilities (SIFs) are legally sanctioned environments for people to inject drugs under medical supervision. SIFs currently operate in ten countries, but to date, no SIF has been opened in ...
Vietnam has a concentrated HIV epidemic with injection drug use being the dominant mode of HIV transmission. Vietnam has rapidly expanded antiretroviral therapy (ART) and methadone maintenance therapy (MMT). T...
Harmful gambling is a public health issue that affects not only adults but also children. With the development of a range of new gambling products, and the marketing for these products, children are potentiall...
Since 2003, a harm reduction program for injecting drug users has been rolled out countrywide in China. It entails services for condom promotion, a needle and syringe program (NSP), and methadone maintenance t...
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