Abstract: Background: Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a method for recruiting hidden populations, such as people who inject drugs (PWID). In RDS, participants recruit their peers into the study; who recruited who into the study is tracked, and thus information is gathered on the population’s social networks. The purpose of this study was to use information collected from an RDS study of PWID to determine the size and structure of injecting networks and whether network characteristics are associated with sharing injecting equipment.Methods: A study was launched in Sydney, Australia in 2009 with five seeds, who were asked to recruit three participants each into the survey
The World Medical Association will step up its fight against smoking with proposals to ban the production, distribution and sale of candy products that depict or resemble tobacco products. At their three-day Council meeting in Sydney, Australia, (April 7-9) WMA delegates agreed to recommend to their annual Assembly in October plans to strengthen the organisation’s anti tobacco policy to combat moves by the tobacco industry to make their products more appealing to young people
Filed in tobacco
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Also tagged against-smoking, all-government, ardis-hoven, association, australia, board, internet, organisation, production, products, their-three-day, tobacco, world-medical
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Thursday, October 21, 2010
Abstract: Background: This study aimed to investigate patient perspectives regarding coming off maintenance opioid substitution treatment (OST). The study explored previous experiences, current interest and concerns about stopping treatment, and perceptions of how and when coming off treatment should be supported.Methods: A cross-sectional survey was used
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Aims To determine the comparative levels of violent offending and victimization among regular methamphetamine and heroin users.Design Cross-sectionalSetting Sydney, Australia.Participants A total of 400 regular methamphetamine (METH) and heroin (HER) users (118 methamphetamine users: METH; 161 regular heroin users: HER; 121 regular users of both: BOTH).Findings Eighty-two per cent reported a life-time history of committing violent crime, 41% in the past 12 months. There were no group differences in life-time violence, but the METH group were significantly more likely than the HER group to have committed violence in the past 12 months (odds ratio 1.94)
Filed in Evidence Base
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Also tagged among-regular, comparative, cross-sectional, heroin-users, increased-risk, meth, past, preceding, setting-sydney, the-preceding, violent-crime
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Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Aims Supervised injecting facilities (SIFs) are effective in reducing the harms associated with injecting drug use among their clientele, but do SIFs ease the burden on ambulance services of attending to overdoses in the community? This study addresses this question, which is yet to be answered, in the growing body of international evidence supporting SIFs efficacy.Design Ecological study of patterns in ambulance attendances at opioid-related overdoses, before and after the opening of a SIF in Sydney, Australia.Setting A SIF opened as a pilot in Sydney’s ‘red light’ district with the aim of accommodating a high throughput of injecting drug users (IDUs) for supervised injecting episodes, recovery and the management of overdoses.Measurements A total of 20 409 ambulance attendances at opioid-related overdoses before and after the opening of the Sydney SIF
Filed in Evidence Base
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Also tagged centre, ease-the-burden, greatest-during, high-throughput, medical, opening, operating-hours, rest, south-wales, study, study-addresses, supervised, their-immediate
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Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Introduction This study used nursing triage text to detect drug- and alcohol-related emergency department (ED) presentations and describe their patient and service delivery characteristics.Methods Data were reviewed for all ED presentations from 2004 to 2006 (n = 263 937) from two hospitals in Sydney, Australia. Each record included two nursing triage free-text fields, which were searched for more than 100 drug-related and more than 60 alcohol-related terms. Adjusted odds ratios were used to compare the characteristics of drug and alcohol-related ED presentations with all other ED presentation types.Results Just over 5% of ED presentations were identified as alcohol-related and 2% as drug-related
Filed in Evidence Base, cannabis
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Also tagged comorbid-drug, highest-rates, mental-health, methods-data, most-prevalent, nursing-triage, patient, prevalence, record-included, research, their-patient
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Monday, February 23, 2009
Conclusions: The EDRS has effectively monitored the increase in GHB amongst REU over the past seven years in Sydney, Australia. This increase is unlikely to have been as readily identified by other surveillance systems. (Source: International Journal of Drug Policy)
Filed in Evidence Base
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Also tagged edrs, effectively-monitored, ghb, increase, international, monitored-the-increase, other-surveillance, over-the-past, past, past-seven, readily-identified, reu
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Monday, February 23, 2009
Conclusions: The EDRS has effectively monitored the increase in GHB amongst REU over the past seven years in Sydney, Australia. This increase is unlikely to have been as readily identified by other surveillance systems. (Source: International Journal of Drug Policy)
Filed in Evidence Base
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Also tagged edrs, effectively-monitored, ghb, increase, monitored-the-increase, over-the-past, past, policy, readily-identified, reu, surveillance
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Conclusion: SE is a common activity in south east Sydney but does not appear to be highly organised, usually taking place in small networks of friends and/or partners for altruistic reasons. Harm reduction programs could capitalise on the prevalence of SE to reach injecting drug users who do not use formal distribution services
Filed in Evidence Base, Harm Reduction
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Also tagged common-activity, drug-users, harm-reduction, highly-organised, international, not-use, policy, prevalence, reach-injecting, reduction-programs, small-networks, south-east, the-prevalence
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Conclusion: SE is a common activity in south east Sydney but does not appear to be highly organised, usually taking place in small networks of friends and/or partners for altruistic reasons. Harm reduction programs could capitalise on the prevalence of SE to reach injecting drug users who do not use formal distribution services. (Source: International Journal of Drug Policy)
Filed in Evidence Base, Harm Reduction
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Also tagged common-activity, drug-users, harm-reduction, highly-organised, international, not-use, policy, prevalence, reach-injecting, reduction-programs, small-networks, south-east, the-prevalence, usually-taking
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