HIV This Week

McKnight I, Maas B, Wood E, Tyndall MW, Small W, Lai C, Montaner JS, Kerr T. Factors associated with public injecting among users of Vancouver’s supervised injection facility. Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse 2007;33:319-25.

McKnight and colleagues evaluated factors associated with public drug injection among a cohort of injection drug users (SEOSI Scientific Evaluation of Supervised Injecting cohort study) originally recruited from within Vancouver’s supervised injecting facility. The authors used univariate statistics and logistic regression to examine factors associated with public drug injection among SEOSI participants. Between June 2004 and July 2005, 714 IDU were followed up as part of SEOSI. In multivariate analyses, factors associated with public drug injection included homelessness (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 3.10; p < .001), syringe lending (aOR = 5.39; p < .001), requiring help injecting (aOR = 1.60; p = .05), and reporting that wait times affected frequency of supervised injecting facility use (aOR = 3.26; p < .001). Persistent public injection was independently associated with elevated HIV risk behaviours, as well as programmatic factors that limit supervised injecting facility use. Supervised injecting facility programme expansion may further help to reduce persistent risk behaviours and the community concerns related to public injection drug use.

Editors’ note: Public injecting carries a much higher risk of HIV exposure because it is generally furtive, rushed, and undertaken under conditions of poor lighting with whatever equipment is available. As well, discarded injecting equipment may pose risks of accidental needle stick injuries to the community. This study determined several variables independently linked to public injecting, including one that is under the control of programme planners – waiting times at the supervised injecting facility.