An application of agent-based modeling to explore the impact of decreasing incarceration rates and increasing drug treatment access on sero-discordant partnerships among people who inject drugs.

ABSTRACT:

Background

People who inject drugs (PWID) lag behind other key populations in HIV care continuum outcomes. The impacts of criminal justice reform and increasing drug treatment access on HIV have been underexplored.

Methods

We developed agent-based models (ABM) of sexual partnerships among PWID and non-PWID, and injection equipment-sharing partnerships among PWID in five US cities (Baltimore, Boston, Miami, New York City, San Francisco) over 3 years. The first set of ABM projected changes in partnership discordance among PWID as a function of decreasing ZIP code-level incarceration rates. The second set projected discordance as a function of increasing ZIP code-level drug treatment access. ABM were parameterized and validated overall, and by city and PWID race/ethnicity (Blac

SUBMITTER: Linton SL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8608566 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature