A Comparison of HIV Related Risk Behaviors of Street Recruited and Treatment Program Recruited Injection Drug Users

SUMMARY This paper compares the demographic traits and the risk behaviors of injection drug users (IDUs) not in treatment who were recruited into an AIDS risk reduction program in Miami, FL with attributes of IDUs who were clients of drug treatment programs. The majority of both IDU samples were male and in their 30's. Most street IDUs were African-American; a majority of treatment clients were White, non-Hispanic. Prevalence of HIV was high for African-Americans and Hispanics from both IDU samples. Prevalence of HIV was relatively low among both samples of White, non-Hispanic IDUs but somewhat higher among White street IDUs than among White treatment clients. Similar proportions of street and treatment IDUs injected daily, but street IDUs were more likely to share works, inject in shooting galleries, use crack and alcohol daily, have multiple sex partners and have IDU sex partners.