This article reviews research on AIDS education targeted to injection drug users in the United States. Findings provide a context for discussing substantive and methodological issues to be addressed in “second generation” research. Substantive issues include: situational and contextual factors affecting risk, patterns of relapse to high-risk behavior and relapse prevention strategies, the importance of isolating the effects of intervention components, outcomes of HIV antibody testing/counseling, and social policy alternatives for AIDS prevention. Methodological issues include: the role of experimental research, the value of combining ethnographic and survey methods, methods appropriate for research on subjective aspects of risk, and alternatives to risk measures based on self reports.
Ineffectiveness of AIDS education and HIV antibody testing in reducing high-risk behaviors among injection drug users.
