Factors associated with premature mortality among young injection drug users in Vancouver.docVIP

Harm Reduction Journal BioMedCentral Research Open Access Factors associated with premature mortality among young injection drug users in Vancouver Cari L Miller*1, Thomas Kerr1,2, Steffanie A Strathdee1,3, Kathy Li1 and Evan Wood1,2 Address: 1British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, St. Pauls Hospital, Vancouver, Canada, 2University of British Columbia, Department of Medicine, Vancouver, Canada and 3University of California at San Diego, Division of International and Cross-Cultural Medicine, San Diego, USA Email: Cari L Miller* - cmiller@cfenet.ubc.ca; Thomas Kerr - tkerr@cfenet.ubc.ca; Steffanie A Strathdee - sstrathdee@; Kathy Li - kathyli@cfenet.ubc.ca; Evan Wood - ewood@cfenet.ubc.ca * Corresponding author Published: 04 January 2007 Received: 10 August 2006 Accepted: 04 January 2007 Harm Reduction Journal 2007, 4:1 doi:10.1186/1477-7517-4-1 This article is available from: /content/4/1/1 ? 2007 Miller et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Young injection drug users (IDUs) may be at increased risk of premature mortality due to the health risks associated with injection drug use including overdoses and infections. However, there has been little research conducted on mortality causes, rates and associations among this population. We undertook this study to investigate patterns of premature mortality, prior to age 30 years, among young IDUs. Methods: Since 1996, 572 young (≤29 years) IDUs have been enrolled in the Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study (VIDUS). Semi-annually, participants have completed an interviewer- administered questionnaire and have undergone serologic testing for HIV and hepatitis C (HCV). Mortality data hav