Injecting drug use among Aboriginal people in New South Wales: a sub-study of the Pharmacy Needle and Syringe Survey
| Project Status: | Archive |
| People Involved: | Joanne Bryant |
| Research Areas: | Viral Hepatitis, Injecting Drug Use & Harm Reduction |
| Funding Agency: | CSRH Consortium for the Promotion of Health and Wellbeing at the Margins |
| Non-Staff Involved: | Dr Dana Paquette |
| Partners / Collaborators: | Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW |
This project was conducted through a research internship offered to the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW (AHMRC) at CSRH, and supported by the Consortium for Social and Policy Research on HIV, Hepatitis C and Related Diseases. The project used existing data from the Pharmacy Needle and Syringe Survey. During each year of this survey, there is a significant over-representation of Aboriginal people (between 16–20%), making it a valuable source of information about the risk practices of Aboriginal people who inject. Currently there is little information available about Aboriginal people who inject drugs in NSW or nationally, and little research has been conducted in partnership with the Aboriginal community. The internship was taken up by Monique McEwan, Harm Minimisation Officer at AHMRC, and was conducted over a six week period, broken into blocks over a year. The internship was supervised by staff at CSRH. A community reference group was also established which comprised key Aboriginal people with expertise in the harm minimisation sector. Outputs of the project include a peer-reviewed manuscript and a fact sheet published jointly by AHMRC and CSRH.
Publications
Paquette, D., McEwan, M., & Bryant, J. (2013). Risk practices among aboriginal people who inject drugs in New South Wales, Australia. AIDS Behavior, 17(7), 2467-2473. http:dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10461-012-0226-x.