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Injecting Equipment Sharing in Russian Drug Injecting Dyads

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Abstract

In this study, we investigated how individual attributes, dyad characteristics and social network characteristics may influence engaging in receptive syringe sharing, distributive syringe sharing and sharing cookers in injecting partnerships of IDUs in St Petersburg, Russia. We found that all three levels were associated with injecting equipment sharing, and that dyad characteristics were modified by characteristics of the social network. Self-reported HIV discordance and male gender concordance played a role in the risk of equipment sharing. Dyad interventions may not be sufficient to reduce injecting risk in IDU partnerships, but a combination of dyad and network interventions that target both IDU partnerships and the entire IDU population may be more appropriate to address injecting risk among IDUs.

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Acknowledgments

The study was funded by National Institute on Drug Abuse, Grant number R01 DA016142. The first author was funded by the Ruth L. Kirschstein award, Drug Dependence Epidemiology Training Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Grant T32 DA007292. We would like to thank all participants and study staff.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Lisbon, Portugal

    V. Anna Gyarmathy

  2. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Nan Li, Karin E. Tobin & Carl A. Latkin

  3. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Irving F. Hoffman

  4. Biomedical Center, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Nikolai Sokolov, Julia Levchenko, Julia Batluk, Andrei A. Kozlov & Andrei P. Kozlov

Authors
  1. V. Anna Gyarmathy
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  2. Nan Li
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  3. Karin E. Tobin
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  4. Irving F. Hoffman
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  5. Nikolai Sokolov
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  6. Julia Levchenko
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  7. Julia Batluk
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  8. Andrei A. Kozlov
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  9. Andrei P. Kozlov
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  10. Carl A. Latkin
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Correspondence to V. Anna Gyarmathy.

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Gyarmathy, V.A., Li, N., Tobin, K.E. et al. Injecting Equipment Sharing in Russian Drug Injecting Dyads. AIDS Behav 14, 141–151 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-008-9518-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-008-9518-6

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