Coping with Illicit Drug Use
Coping with Illicit Drug UseHow do drug users cope with a lifestyle
which has at its core the need to obtain and consume an illicit
product? This book describes the lifestyles of injecting drug
users and the strategies they adopt in their everyday lives to
reduce the risk of contracting infectious diseases.
Rich descriptions and accounts from drug users derived from a
qualitative research project provide an insight into how drug
users control their usage and the effects it has on their daily
lives and routines. The book identifies how drug users' informal
coping strategies can be utilised to enhance a healthier and safer
lifestyle.
Practice notes are provided for those working with drug users
which use the research findings to suggest ways in which community-based
interventions can be further developed and made more effective.
ISBN 1 872767 17 6 66 pp Paperback 4.99
Syringe exchange in
England - an overviewSyringe-exchange is a facility where drug
injectors can obtain sterile needles and syringes and return used
injecting equipment. England's syringe-exchange experiment officially
began in 1987 and was a bold and, at that time, controversial
response to rising levels of HIV infection in the United States
and to the potential threat of similar epidemics in the United
Kingdom. Since then it has been subject to close critical scrutiny
and probably the most intensive monitoring of any service for
drug users in the UK.
It is a strategy which goes beyond the straightforward exchange
of sterile injecting equipment for "dirty works". The
agencies involved provide a wide range of other equipment and
services. It is an HIV prevention strategy intended to help drug
injectors change their behaviour to reduce their risk of HIV infection
and the risk to others.
This report describes what has been learnt about the successes
and limitations of syringe-exchange and considers its usefulness
as an HIV prevention strategy. It draws on research conducted
by the Monitoring Research Group between 1987 and 1990.
Read the opening (you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader)
ISBN 1 872767 02 8 30pp paberback £3.50
HARD
TO REACH OR OUT OF REACH?
A major challenge facing HIV prevention services is how to reach
and respond to the 'hard-to-reach'. How do services assess and
provide for the HIV and health care of hard-to-reach sex workers
and drug users. How effective is outreach health education in
achieving these aims? Can statutory and voluntary sector responses
to outreach and community-based service provision be combined?
Hard to Reach or Out of Reach? describes a three year process
evaluation which combined qualitative ethnographic and quantitative
methods to assess an innovative model of HIV outreach intervention
for sex workers and drug users in central London. The evaluation
discusses the current and future role of outreach in the prevention
of HIV, focusing on issues of health promotion, service delivery
and management functioning.
Hard to Reach or Out of Reach? is of interest to health educators,
health practitioners and social science researchers in the fields
of health,
HIV/AIDS and drugs.
Read the first chapter (you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader)
ISBN 1 872767 01 X £5.50
