Graciela Touzé

Some data-driven reflections on priorities in AIDS network research.

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.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic and changes in injecting drug use in Buenos Aires, Argentina

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.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome Prevention in Injection Drug Users and Their Partners and Children: Lessons Learned in Latin America—The Argentinean Case

Thirty-nine percent of Argentineans living with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome were infected with human immunodeficiency virus through the injection of drugs. However, it was not until the 1990s that harm reduction programs were created. Research and outreach projects have been developed to identify and interact with the hidden injection drug user (IDU) population. Implementation of rapid assessment and response methodology contributed to the founding of Argentinas first syringe exchange program. Community-based outreach is the appropriate method for working with the impoverished population of Buenos Aires. Seroprevalence studies and focused prevention campaigns targeting IDUs and their sex partners and children have been developed. Collaborations between government and nongovernmental organizations in various cities supported the distribution of prevention and harm reduction messages to 900 IDUs within a 3-month period. Ongoing research, community-based interventions, and collaborative work among different organizations allow for more frequent and more consistent contact with the IDU population of Argentina.

Drug use and peer norms among youth in a high-risk drug use neighbourhood in Buenos Aires

Aims: To determine if measures of drug use risk, sexual risk, external norms and internalized norms developed for impoverished neighbourhoods of New York are usable in similar neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires and have similar associations with each other in the two cities despite the many cultural, social, economic and political differences between these localities. Methods: In 2003–2004, 240 current non-injection drug users (IDUs) and 63 current IDUs, aged 21–35 years, were interviewed in poor neighbourhoods of the Southern Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires about their drug use, sexual behaviours, internalized norms and external norms (actual and perceived social pressures from others) using measures developed in New York (Flom, Friedman, Benny, & Curtis, 2001a, Flom, et al., ; Flom, Friedman, Jose, Neaigus, & Curtis, 2001c). Analyses studied associations between a hierarchical scale of drug use risk and the other variables. Results: The hierarchical risk scale of drug use was associated with sexual risk behaviours; with external norms towards drug injection and sex with drug injectors, and internalized norms about social distance from drug injectors. Conclusions: The hierarchical drug use risk scale and the measures of external norms had relationships similar to those found in the earlier studies in New York City. This supports the ideas that these measures may have a degree of cross-cultural applicability.