Social networks of people who use drugs

Most behavioural and health risk research focuses on individual characteristics, ignoring the potential effects of social networks. For example, a typical study of overdose risk might investigate the role of age, gender, the type of drug used and drug use patterns, without considering the potential effect of social networks.

However, social networks may be a key factor related to overdose related harms: for example, through norms related to risk behaviour which may differ by social group, or more directly through delivery of first aid or having someone to call emergency services.

Burnet Institute has collected data on the social networks of people who use drugs through several studies, including SuperMIX, the largest cohort of people who inject drugs ever conducted in Australia (which has currently more than 1,200 participants); and VMAX, a cohort of 745 methamphetamine users.

The objective of this project is to understand the characteristics of the social networks of the participants in these studies, and to investigate the influence of these characteristics on drug-related risk behaviours and harms, including cessation from and relapse into drug use, and overdose.