Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Outside of Africa, it is estimated that two-thirds of new HIV infections are occurring among people who inject illicit drugs. Experts have pointed to the need to develop innovative methods of examining high-risk environments which are implicated in the transmission of HIV, and have pointed to the potential of combining ethnographic and epidemiological research methods. Innovative approaches to examining how participation in particular social contexts and environments fosters vulnerability to HIV are crucial to the development of effective interventions designed to reduce HIV transmission among this highly vulnerable population. The proposed research project will employ ethnographic methods to develop empirical information regarding how transitions into particular social contexts influence HIV risks and individual ability to engage in risk reduction among injection drug users. This information will be integrated with findings from ongoing epidemiological studies in the same locales to test socially-oriented hypotheses regarding the relationship between HIV vulnerabilities and particular social contexts. This research will help to advance the study of HIV risks among injection drug users and inform the development of social and community interventions to reduce HIV transmission.