Gender differences in sharing injecting equipment by drug users in England

The study investigates whether the higher rates of sharing needles and syringes reported by female injecting drug users (IDUs) also occur in sharing other types of injecting equipment. Structured interviews were carried out with 181 IDUs in two cities (100 in Bournemouth, 81 in Bath), with almost equal numbers of males and females in each sample, recruited through needle exchanges and 'snowballing'. Almost all (92%) had shared some equipment in the previous six months: 40% had shared syringes in the month before interview. Several methods of assessing sharing found that women received previously used injecting equipment significantly more often than men. Significantly more males had passed on equipment other than syringes in the previous six months. Fine-grained analyses of 547 injecting episodes found that women received needles and syringes, and syringes significantly more often than did men. The pattern of gender differences reported suggests that women are at higher risk of blood borne viral infections because they receive more types of used equipment and do so more frequently. These results have implications for practice and research.