Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

While significant resources have been devoted to reducing the size and scope of illicit drug markets, recent data suggests that drug use and other drug-related behaviours such as drug dealing continue to occur at high rates in areas where these markets are located. Because HIV and other blood-borne diseases are transmitted through injection drug use, research has focused on preventing the initiation of such behaviours. Of particular concern, then, is that research suggests that proximity to a drug market may increase the risk of initiation illicit drug use and the initiation of drug dealing among vulnerable populations such as street youth. The proposed research project consists of an investigation of the factors that make individuals in vulnerable populations such as street youth more likely to engage in drug dealing. As well, this project will also investigate the factors that influence individuals entrenched in a drug market scene to cease both drug dealing and injection drug use. This investigation will use data collected among illicit drug users and street youth in Vancouver over three years. By focusing on initiation into drug dealing and cessation of drug dealing and drug dealing, it is hoped that this research will allow for the development of effective interventions aimed at preventing drug market involvement. Further, by focusing on the factors that affect cessation of drug use and drug market involvement, this investigation will also provide a framework within which to develop interventions targeted towards entrenched drug market participants. Given the intimate relationship between drug dealing and drug use at the street level in Vancouver and other Canadian urban areas, a project investigating both of these phenomena, and the way that they interact, will provide important findings that have implications for the development and implementation of a wide range of public health interventions