Abstract

Background

There are a wide variety of infectious complications of injection drug use. Understanding the trajectory of these complications might inform the development of an early warning system for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) outbreaks that occur regularly among people who inject drugs (PWID).

Methods

A distributed lag Poisson regression model in the Bayesian setting was used to examine temporal patterns in the incidence of injection-associated infectious diseases and their association with HIV cases in Lawrence and Lowell, Massachusetts between 2005 and 2018.

Results

Current-month HIV counts are associated with fatal overdoses approximately 8 months prior, cases of infective endocarditis 10 months prior, and cases of skin and soft tissue infections and incision and drainage procedures associated with these infections 12 months prior.

Conclusions

Collecting data on these other complications associated with injection drug use by public health departments may be important to consider because these complications may serve as input to a sentinel system to trigger early intervention and avert potential outbreaks of HIV.

Details

Title
The Dynamics of Infectious Diseases Associated With Injection Drug Use in Lawrence and Lowell, Massachusetts
Author
Gonsalves, Gregg S 1 ; Paltiel, A David 2 ; Thornhill, Thomas 1 ; Iloglu, Suzan 1 ; DeMaria, Alfred, Jr 3 ; Cranston, Kevin 3 ; Klevens, R Monina 3 ; Walensky, Rochelle P 4 ; Warren, Joshua L 5 

 Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; Public Health Modeling Unit, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, USA 
 Department of Health Policy and Management, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; Public Health Modeling Unit, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, USA 
 Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA 
 Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA 
 Department of Biostatistics, Yale School of Public Health, Connecticut, USA; Public Health Modeling Unit, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, USA 
Publication year
2021
Publication date
Jun 2021
Publisher
Oxford University Press
e-ISSN
23288957
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3171169674
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Infectious Diseases Society of America. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.