This small grant (R03) to the Fogarty International Center of National Institute of Health seeks support under the AIDS Fogarty International Research Collaboration Award program to support international collaborative research. Bruce D. Johnson directs the parent grant, """"""""Natural History of Crack Distribution/Abuse"""""""" (NIDA: R01DA05126-06) which is a major ethnographic study of crack and heroin users/sellers in New York City; staff have published nearly 20 articles and one book is in press; many more publications will follow. Three years of Fogarty finding is sought to conduct collaborative and parallel research with Dr. Lisa Maher in Sydney. Australia provides heroin users with most services included in an American """"""""liberal agenda"""""""" (free needles and condoms, methadone treatment on demand, income supports, free health care, and moderate policing/incarceration policies). Nevertheless, the behaviors of Sydney heroin users may be very similar in some respects, but different than other ways, from heroin users in Brooklyn. This collaboration will: A) document similarities and differences in heroin and cocaine use via injection, snorting, and smoking among street heroin abusers in New York and Sydney; B) ascertain risk behaviors for HIV and HIV status among Sydney street heroin users. The Fogarty research will """"""""piggyback"""""""" on research conducted by Dr. Maher, funded by the Australian government, for an ethnographic study of heroin and drug users in Sydney. With the Fogarty funding, Dr. Maher will conduct forty in-depth ethnographic interviews with heroin smokers and injectors. About 30 subjects will be studied in Sydney and 10 in New York; they will be reinterviewed annually during years 2 and 3. Dr. Maher will engage in field work, record detailed field notes, and conduct in depth interviews with 40 subjects using an interview guide modified from the parent grant. She will analyze the resulting qualitative data to generate several reports comparing heroin abusers in Sydney and Brooklyn, document their needle sharing and sexual risk behaviors, and compare the impact of Australia's relatively more liberal social policies on heroin user lifestyles. Urine specimens will be obtained to document the veracity of respondents' self-reported drug use and exposure to HIV.
