Injecting drug use is associated with numerous health and social harms and accounts for the vast majority of hepatitis C infectious and fatal drug overdoses, making it an important global public health issue.

Much of the burden of viral hepatitis is in developing countries among people who inject drugs.

Injecting drug use is an important factor for transmission of viral hepatitis with the viruses more efficiently spread through unsafe drug injection than HIV.

Research and Public Health Focus

• Continue to follow a cohort of people who inject drugs with or at risk of hepatitis C using a social network approach
• In Myanmar, harm reduction, needle and syringe services, overdose prevention and management
• Outreach services to friends and family of people who inject drugs.

Centre for Research Excellence in Injecting Drug Use (CREIDU)

• Generated new evidence about ways to improve the health and social burden of injecting drug use in Australia and developed tools for translating research into policy and practice.

Current Projects

• Attitudes to drug use among East African migrants in Melbourne’s western suburbs
  This project aims to explore alcohol and drug use among marginalised young African migrants.
• Breaking the cycle: supporting people with drug use histories to avoid reincarceration
  Re-designing the post release experience for people with drug use histories using systems and co-design
• CREIDU: Centre for Research Excellence into Injecting Drug Use
  Improving the health of PWID through new research to inform public health policy and practice.
• CT2 Study: Community-based Testing and Treatment for Hepatitis C
  This hybrid trial is underway in Myanmar.
• EC Australia: The vital missing link to eliminating hepatitis C
  Australia’s first nationally coordinated response to hepatitis C aims to achieve elimination by 2030.
• EC Partnership: Eliminate Hepatitis C Partnership
  Informing the elimination of HCV through a community-based nurse-led model of care and treatment.
• Eliminate Hepatitis C Australia Partnership
  Bringing together researchers, implementation scientists, government, health services and community organisations to increase hepatitis C testing and treatment across Australia.
• HCV Elimination Modelling
  Providing evidence-based policy recommendations for prevention, testing and treatment of Hepatitis C.
• Hepatitis C and injecting networks
  Understanding the transmission of hepatitis C in a social network of young people who inject drugs.
• PATH Cohort Study
  A cohort study of the trajectories of prisoners with a history of injecting drug use after release from prison.
• Sex, Drugs, and Rock'n'Roll (Big Day Out Study)
  A landmark study since 2005 of young people's risk behaviours including sex, drug use and alcohol.
• SuperMIX: The Melbourne Injecting Drug User Cohort Study
  A five-year study of the dynamics of cessation of injecting drug use and any subsequent relapse.
• The B-VAX Project: Hep B vaccinations for people who inject drugs
  Using assertive outreach to provide hep B vaccinations for people who inject drugs.
• The International Collaboration on Hepatitis C Elimination in HIV Cohorts (InCHEHC)
  Measuring progress and identifying challenges for meeting WHO targets for achieving HCV elimination in people living with HIV.

Past Projects

• Evaluation of GLBTIQ-specific group counselling at the Victorian AIDS Council
  Evaluation of GLBTIQ-specific group counselling for substance misuse and mental health issues at VAC.
• Hit & Miss: Health needs of ex-prisoners with an IDU history
  Assessing drug use and health needs for six months post-release.
• Rapid-EC hepatitis C Pilot Study
  Investigating the feasibility of providing rapid point-of-care testing for hepatitis C in community clinics.
• Risk assessment of drug users in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
  This consultancy accessed the results of a rapid assessment and response of people who use drugs in Tanzania.
• TAP: Treatment and Prevention Hep C study
  Does treating people who inject drugs for their hep C reduce transmission and prevalence?
• VMAX: Understanding meth use in Victoria
  Aims to determine meth use in Melbourne and three regional Victorian areas.