Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment
Volume 31, Issue 1 , Pages 51-57, July 2006

Improving access to sterile syringes and safe syringe disposal for injection drug users in methadone maintenance treatment

  • Jennifer McNeely, M.D.

      Affiliations

    • Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
    • ,
  • Julia H. Arnsten, M.D., M.P.H.

      Affiliations

    • Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA
    • Division of Substance Abuse, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA
    • Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA
    • ,
  • Marc N. Gourevitch, M.D., M.P.H.

      Affiliations

    • Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016, USA

Received 25 October 2005; received in revised form 1 March 2006; accepted 22 March 2006.

Abstract 

We evaluated a novel intervention designed to improve access to sterile syringes and safe syringe disposal for injection drug users (IDUs) newly enrolled in methadone maintenance, through interviews with two sequential cohorts of 100 recent entrants into a methadone program in the Bronx, NY. A substantial number of participants had injected in the previous 6 months, and most continued injecting during the early weeks of treatment. The intervention was associated with significant behavior changes among IDUs, including increased use of pharmacies as a primary source of syringes (11% vs. 37%, p < .05) and decreases in both purchasing of syringes on the street (51% vs. 27%, p < .05) and needle sharing (40% vs. 7%, p < .01). The intervention had no impact on the prevalence of injection or on syringe disposal practices. Our findings suggest that drug treatment programs can serve an important role in reducing injection-related risk behavior by facilitating access to sterile syringes.

Keywords: Substance abuse, AIDS/HIV, Syringe exchange, Drug treatment, Health promotion/disease prevention

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 Portions of this research were presented as a poster at the 131st Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association, San Francisco, CA, November 15–19, 2003.

PII: S0740-5472(06)00087-0

doi:10.1016/j.jsat.2006.03.009

Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment
Volume 31, Issue 1 , Pages 51-57, July 2006

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