Risk for hepatitis C: transition and initiation to injecting drug use among youth in a range of injecting drug user networks

This project, funded by NHMRC and NSW Health, aimed to investigate and report on a number of aspects of initiation and transition to injecting drug use among young people. The report focuses on issues of: - transition to injecting what drugs were used prior to injection, what was participants contact with injectors; - the initiation episode describing the factors about the occasion (what drugs were used, where injecting equipment was accessed), as well as characteristics of the initiator and their social networks; - the effect of drug most frequently used between current stimulant and opioid injectors; - age at initiation differences between early and late initiators; - hepatitis C status self-reporting of positive hepatitis C serostatus; - risk practice for blood borne viruses variables of risk, demography, and social networks are examined in determining those more likely to self-report risk practices such as sharing, borrowing or re-using injection equipment - transitions out of injecting we examine patterns of drug use and efforts of participants to reduce or stop drug use. This study comprised two arms (1) quantitative (2) qualitative. The quantitative arm describes the sample by: recruitment location; drug most frequently injected in the past six months; age at initiation, and (briefly) length of time since first injection; hepatitis C status; and risk practice in relation to becoming infected with the hepatitis C virus. The qualitative arm: identifies patterns of transition and initiation; develops a typology of patterns of initiation; identifies meanings attached to risk of exposure to hepatitis C; identifies a wide range of IDU networks occupied by young people; examines the role of key people in networks such as the initiator, key peers and lay experts, in relation to injecting risk during initiation and current injecting practice; increases understanding of the ways in which illicit drug users communicate, share and learn from each other vis-à-vis injecting practice; and identifies the meanings and processes associated with injecting drug use, especially those to which young injectors themselves subscribe and contribute (e.g. folk pharmacologies; meanings around blood, including blood awareness; understandings of the term sharing).