Quantifying Potentially Infectious Sharing Patterns among People who Inject Drugs in Baltimore, USA

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Epidemiol Infect
• Personal Author:
  Smith, M. K. ; Graham, M. ; Latkin, C. A. ; Mehta, S. H. ; Cummings, D. A. T.
• Description:
  Mixing matrices quantify how people with similar or different characteristics make contact with each other, creating potential for disease transmission. Little empirical data on mixing patterns among persons who inject drugs (PWID) are available to inform models of blood-borne disease such as HIV and hepatitis C virus. Egocentric drug network data provided by PWID in Baltimore, Maryland between 2005 and 2007 were used to characterise drug equipment-sharing patterns according to age, race and gender. Black PWID and PWID who were single (i.e. no stable sexual partner) self-reported larger equipment-sharing networks than their white and non-single counterparts. We also found evidence of assortative mixing according to age, gender and race, though to a slightly lesser degree in the case of gender. Highly assortative mixing according to race and gender highlights the existence of demographically isolated clusters, for whom generalised treatment interventions may have limited benefits unless targeted directly. These findings provide novel insights into mixing patterns of PWID for which little empirical data are available. The age-specific assortativity we observed is also significant in light of its role as a key driver of transmission for other pathogens such as influenza and tuberculosis.
• Subjects:
  Adult Age Factors Article Baltimore Female Humans Male Middle Aged Needle Sharing Sex Factors Substance Abuse, Intravenous Young Adult

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• Source:
  Epidemiol Infect. 146(14):1845-1853
• Pubmed ID:
  30070187
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC6135657
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  R21 AI116296/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; U01 DA036297/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/United States ; R01 AI114703/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DA026727/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DA040488/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DA031030/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DA032059/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DA032217/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DA041034/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/United States ; T32 AI102623/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States ; R01 DA012568/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/United States ; U01 CK000337/CK/NCEZID CDC HHS/United States
• Volume:
  146
• Issue:
  14
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:cca95771edd27f47fa94d2ae590e49050a8fa9f3249b03042721c23c97dcd47a
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/58960/cdc_58960_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 203.81 KB ]