Understanding the needs of women who inject drugs

Global evidence suggests women who inject drugs have significantly different experiences and needs to those of men who inject. For women, injecting drug use is often viewed as contrary to the socially derived roles of women as mothers, partners, and caretakers, with the potential to increase stigma and other harms.

Although women represent the minority of people who inject drugs, evidence suggests they face higher mortality rates, increased likelihood of injection related problems (e.g. overdose, blood borne virus exposure), faster progression from first use to dependence, and greater risky injection and/or sexual risk behaviours than men who inject drugs. Despite this, most literature focused on injecting drug use has not examined these specific gendered differences.

This study aims to better understand the gendered context of the lives of women who inject drugs, to help inform policy/practice responses for addressing their needs. Topics of investigation may include examining:

• injecting drug use practices/patterns
• barriers/enablers accessing harm reduction/health services and social supports
• relationship structures (e.g. peers, intimate partners, families who inject/do not inject)
• experiences of stigma
• women’s parenting/family roles.

The study will be leveraged off Burnet Institute’s SuperMIX study, a longitudinal cohort of people who inject drugs (n=1,303). Opportunities exist for both qualitative and quantitative research, or mixed methods research including:

• conducting in-depth interviews with women of the SuperMIX study, to better understand their gendered experiences as someone who injects drugs
• analysis of longitudinal SuperMIX survey data to characterise the qualitative research sample and/or understand and compare differences between selected variables (experiences) of men/women.