A success story: HIV prevention for injection drug users in Rhode Island.
BACKGROUND
New HIV diagnoses related to injection drug use (IDU) have declined in the United States. Access to clean syringes and decreasing HIV transmission among injection drug users have been HIV prevention priorities of the Rhode Island (RI) HIV community. To examine trends in IDU-related new HIV diagnoses in RI, we performed a retrospective analysis of new HIV diagnoses according to HIV risk factor from 1990-2003.


RESULTS
There has been an 80% absolute reduction in IDU-related new HIV diagnoses in RI coincident with IDU-specific prevention efforts.


CONCLUSIONS
There has been a greater decline in IDU-related new HIV diagnoses in Rhode Island compared to national data reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We hypothesize that this dramatic decline in Rhode Island is related to extensive HIV prevention efforts targeting IDUs. Further research is needed to examine the impact of specific HIV prevention interventions for injection drug users.
Beckwith
Curt G
CG
Brown Medical School, Department of Medicine, The Miriam Hospital, 164 Summit Ave, Providence, Rhode Island 02906, USA. CBeckwith@Lifespan.org
Moreira
Carla C
CC
Aboshady
Hesham M
HM
Zaller
Nickolas
N
Rich
Josiah D
JD
Flanigan
Timothy P
TP
D015984:Causality; D015897:Comorbidity; D018562:Disease Transmission, Infectious / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055030:Drug Users; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000635:transmission; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012237:Rhode Island / Q000453:epidemiology; D015819:Substance Abuse, Intravenous / Q000453:epidemiology*