Bleach programs for preventing AIDS among IV drug users: Modeling the impact of HIV prevalence

J.E. Siegel, M.C. Weinstein and H.V. Fineberg

American Journal of Public Health, 1991, vol. 81, issue 10, 1273-1279

Abstract: Background. The growing importance of drug use as a mode of HIV transmission has led to increased attention to AIDS prevention among intravenous drug users (IVDUs). This analysis examines the effectiveness of bleach distribution, a program to prevent HIV transmission via shared needles. Methods. We used a Markov model to assess the role of the initial HIV prevalence among drug users in determining the effectiveness of bleach programs. The model incorporates survey data on risk behaviors and published information describing HIV incubation and mortality. It predicts life expectancy for cohorts of IVDUs with and without a bleach program to estimate program effectiveness. Results. We found that bleach programs can produce the greatest life-year savings in areas of low HIV prevalence. In the lowest prevalence scenario (0.02 initial prevalence), initiation of the program resulted in a projected savings of 2.3 life years per HIV-negative drug user, compared with 1.7 and 1.3 years under medium (0.25) and high (0.60) prevalence, respectively. Conclusions. While bleach programs are beneficial in all groups of IVDUs, these results highlight the advantages of introducing bleach programs early, when prevalence is still comparatively low in a drug-user population.

Date: 1991
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:1991:81:10:1273-1279_4

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Alfredo Morabia

More articles in American Journal of Public Health from American Public Health Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().