Understanding variations in HIV and hepatitis risk is necessarily linked to awareness of structural, situational, and network factors that influence transmission incidence at the local level. In order to identify specific micro-social risk contingencies, Social Mapping Focus Groups were conducted as a strategy to learn as much as possible about the people, places, and structures that modify injection drug use behaviors. Focus Groups are increasingly being used as a method for gathering information that is otherwise difficult to access or observe. Six to eight participants were recruited from homogeneous ethnic and socio-demographic neighborhoods. Candidates who had injected drugs within thirty days were enlisted primarily from interviewees in our larger project, and through street outreach. On a partially detailed map of the neighborhood, participants identified locations of drug selling, syringe selling, high volumes of discarded syringes, areas of high police activity, and injection sites. By gathering the localized information that active drug injectors consider important we gain a valuable perspective not otherwise available to us as data. Through obtaining a spatial and geographic picture of syringe access, use, and discard, an important structural understanding of syringe-related risk emerges. Our findings indicate that ability for people to access clean syringes and subsequent risk are significantly impacted by such factors as drug store location, operating hours of the local needle-exchange van, and police presence. This data allows us to identify pockets of high-risk activities that spread to the larger community, and supports the effective targeting of interventions.
Learning Objectives: To understand the utility of Social Mapping Focus Groups in describing syringe-related HIV risk, and creating strategic interventions.
Keywords: HIV Risk Behavior, Syringe Sources
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
Disclosure not received
Relationship: Not Received.