Rural and urban injection drug use in Puerto Rico: Network implications for human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis C virus infection

Authors

Courtney Thrash, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Melissa L. Welch-Lazoritz, University of Nebraska LincolnFollow
G. Robin Gauthier, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Bilal Khan, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Roberto Abadie, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Kirk Dombrowski, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Sandra Miranda De Leon, Puerto Rico Department of Health, San Juan
Yadira Rolon Colon, Puerto Rico Department of Health, San Juan

ORCID IDs

R. Abadie https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4276-1620

Date of this Version

4-1-2018

Citation

Published in final edited form as: J Ethn Subst Abuse. 2018 ; 17(2): 199–222. doi:10.1080/15332640.2017.1326864

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5841239/

Comments

© 2017 Taylor & Francis. Used by permission.

This is the HHS Public Access Author manuscript.

Abstract

Understanding the short- and long-term transmission dynamics of blood-borne illnesses in network contexts represents an important public health priority for people who inject drugs and the general population that surrounds them. The purpose of this article is to compare the risk networks of urban and rural people who inject drugs in Puerto Rico. In the current study, network characteristics are drawn from the sampling “trees” used to recruit participants to the study. We found that injection frequency is the only factor significantly related to clustering behavior among both urban and rural people who inject drugs.