Gender differences in sharing injecting equipment by drug users in England

Abstract

The study investigates whether the higher rates of sharing needles and syringes reported by female injecting drug users (IDUs) also occur in sharing other types of injecting equipment. Structured interviews were carried out with 181 IDUs in two cities (100 in Bournemouth, 81 in Bath), with almost equal numbers of males and females in each sample, recruited through needle exchanges and 'snowballing'. Almost all (92%) had shared some equipment in the previous six months: 40% had shared syringes in the month before interview. Several methods of assessing sharing found that women received previously used injecting equipment significantly more often than men. Significantly more males had passed on equipment other than syringes in the previous six months. Fine-grained analyses of 547 injecting episodes found that women received needles and syringes, and syringes significantly more often than did men. The pattern of gender differences reported suggests that women are at higher risk of blood borne viral infections because they receive more types of used equipment and do so more frequently. These results have implications for practice and research.

Differing HIV Risks and Prevention Needs among Men and Women Injection Drug Users (IDU) in the District of Columbia

“…Like other authors, we found that injection behaviors differ substantially by gender, [6][7][8][9][10][11][13][14][15]17,[38][39][40][41][42][43] with women more likely to be injected by a sexual partner than friends or acquaintances, share needles, and use a greater variety of drugs than men. We found that men experienced HIV risk behaviors as well, with increased homelessness and incarceration relative to women, though these differences were attenuated after adjustment for confounders; indeed, the constellation of psychosocial issues including depression was greater among women than men, as other authors have found.…”

Gender Differences in Sexual and Injection Risk Behavior Among Active Young Injection Drug Users in San Francisco (the UFO Study)

“…4 Hepatitis C virus (HCV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) occur with high incidence among IDUs. [5][6][7] Female IDUs may be especially vulnerable to these infections because female IDUs have been observed to have greater frequency of injecting with used syringes and other injection equipment than their male counterparts, 8,9 and to have a higher number of lifetime sexual partners 10,11 ; they also are more likely to be initiated into injection drug use by their male sex partners. 12 In addition, female IDUs are more likely than male IDUs to have overlapping sexual and drug networks [13][14][15] ; that is, females are more likely to have regular sexual partners with whom they also inject drugs.…”

Trends in Injection Risk Behaviors among People Who Inject Drugs and the Impact of Harm Reduction Programs in Ukraine, 2007–2013

“…There are a number of demographic, social, and other factors that have been consistently associated with injection risk behavior in prior studies. Although PWIDs are more likely to be male, females are more likely to inject with used needles/syringes and have overlapping sexual and injection partnerships [11][12][13][14][15]. Older PWIDs have been shown to report less needle sharing and a lower risk of heroin overdose [16][17][18], whereas younger PWIDs report more frequent injection risk behaviors [19].…”

“…Social and demographic variables included age (i.e., [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35], and over 35 years old), marital status (i.e., live with husband/wife or sexual partner, do not live with husband/wife or sexual partner), educational level (i.e., primary (<9 years), secondary (9-11 years, community college), college or more (Bachelor's or higher level)), occupation (i.e., students and people permanent or occasional work vs. unemployed), and regions of Ukraine (i.e., Northern/ Western (Kyiv, Poltava, Sumy, Lutsk), Southern (i.e., Simferopol, Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv), Eastern (i.e., Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk), Central (Kyrovograd, Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk)). Several variables included were related to injection behavior including age of injection drug use initiation (i.e., [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20], and 20+ years old), type of injection drugs used in the last 30 days (i.e., opiates only, stimulants only, both opiates and stimulants), and overdose in the last 12 months.…”