Social Networks, Drug Injectors' Lives, and HIV/AIDS recognizes HIV as a socially structured disease - its transmission usually requires intimate contact between individuals - and shows how social networks shape high-risk behaviors and the spread of HIV. The authors recount the groundbreaking use of social network methods, ethnographic direct-observation techniques, and in-depth interviews in their study of a drug-using community in Brooklyn, New York. They provide a detailed documentary of the lives of community members. They describe drug-use, the affects of poverty and homelessness, the acquisition of money and drugs, and social relationships within the group. Social Networks, Drug Injectors' Lives, and HIV/AIDS shows that social networks and contexts are of crucial importance in understanding and fighting the AIDS epidemic. These findings should revitalize prevention efforts and reshape social policy.

Contents:
Global perspectives on drug injecting; the social context of injectors' risk behaviour; health and social consequences of injecting drug use; drug injecting and HIV-1 infection - major findings from the multi-city study; new injectors and HIV-1 risk; the structure of stable seroprevalence HIV- 1 epidemics among injecting drug users; mobility and the diffusion of drug injecting and HIV infection; modelling the HIV-1 and AIDS epidemic among drug injectors; drug injecting and sexual safety - cross-national comparisons among cocaine and opioid injectors; cities responding to HIV- 1 epidemics among injecting drug users; prison and HIV-1 infection among drug injectors; preventing epidemics of HIV-1 among injecting drug users; overview - policies and interventions to stem HIV-1 epidemics associated with injecting drug use; appendix 1 - methodology of the World Health Organization multi-city study on drug injecting and risk of HIV infection; appendix 2 - city epidemics and contexts; appendix 3 - contributors and collaborating agencies in the World Health Organization multi-city study on drug injecting and risk of HIV infection.

Drug Injecting and HIV Infection is a comparative international study of drug injecting behaviour and HIV infection based on the World Health Organization's study of 13 cities as disparate as Athens, Bangkok, Glasgow and Rio de Janeiro. Using a standardized methodology for the collection of data, as well as central data management and analysis, this study represents the largest international project of its kind. It presents a comprehensive overview of what is currently known about drug injecting, HIV infection, epidemic dynamics and possibilities for prevention.
Stressing the importance of linking research to intervention and policy, the contributors emphasize the need to place HIV and policy issues on the international agenda. Written by experts in the field, this global study offers an in-depth and definitive analysis of the subject.

Social Networks, Drug Injectors' Lives, and HIV/AIDS recognizes HIV as a socially structured disease - its transmission usually requires intimate contact between individuals - and shows how social networks shape high-risk behaviors and the spread of HIV. The authors recount the groundbreaking use of social network methods, ethnographic direct-observation techniques, and in-depth interviews in their study of a drug-using community in Brooklyn, New York. They provide a detailed documentary of the lives of community members. They describe drug-use, the affects of poverty and homelessness, the acquisition of money and drugs, and social relationships within the group. Social Networks, Drug Injectors' Lives, and HIV/AIDS shows that social networks and contexts are of crucial importance in understanding and fighting the AIDS epidemic. These findings should revitalize prevention efforts and reshape social policy.