RESUMEN
This article discusses the changes in injecting drug use from 1998 to 2003 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Rapid Situation Assessment and Response methodology was used to obtain the information. Quantitative and qualitative techniques were triangulated: 140 current IDUs and 35 sex partners of injection drug users (IDUs) were surveyed; 17 in-depth interviews with the surveyed IDUs and 2 focus groups were held, as well as ethnographic observations. The way in which risk and care practices among injecting drug users changed and the influence of the HIV/ AIDS epidemic on this process are described. In recent years, the frequency of injection practices and sharing of injecting equipment has decreased, while injecting drug use is a more hidden practice in a context of increasing impact of the disease in the injecting drug use social networks and changes in the price and quality of drugs. Knowledge about these changes helps build harm reduction activities oriented to IDUs in their particular social context.
Asunto(s)
Brotes de Enfermedades , Infecciones por VIH/mortalidad , Compartición de Agujas/estadística & datos numéricos , Programas de Intercambio de Agujas , Conducta de Reducción del Riesgo , Abuso de Sustancias por Vía Intravenosa/epidemiología , Adolescente , Adulto , Argentina/epidemiología , Femenino , Infecciones por VIH/prevención & control , Reducción del Daño , Humanos , Entrevistas como Asunto , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Asunción de RiesgosRESUMEN
Risk networks can transmit HIV or other infections; social networks can transmit social influence and thus help shape norms and behaviors. This primarily-theoretical paper starts with a review of network concepts, and then presents data from a New York network study to study patterns of sexual and injection linkages among IDUs and other drug users and nonusers, men who have sex with men, women who have sex with women, other men and other women in a high-risk community and the distribution of HIV, sex at group sex events, and health intravention behaviors in this network. It then discusses how risk network microstructures might influence HIV epidemics and urban vulnerability to epidemics; what social and other forces (such as "Big Events" like wars or ecological disasters) might shape networks and their associated norms, intraventions, practices and behaviors; and how network theory and research have and may continue to contribute to developing interventions against HIV epidemics.