Estimated prevalence of injecting drug use in Glasgow

Abstract

The prevalence of injecting drug use in Glasgow during 1989 was derived using log-linear analysis to model the relationship between unnamed identifier information obtained from Strathclyde Police, the Scottish HIV-test Reporting Scheme and Treatment Agencies. Whereas previous attempts have required, although rarely demonstrated, independence between samples, the method adopted here did not necessitate this assumption. The best model resulted from taking the dependency between the HIV-test and treatment samples into account, and yielded an estimate of 9424 (95% confidence interval +/- 2460), which represents 11-19 per 1000 population aged 15-55 in Glasgow. The estimated male:female ratio was 2.64:1 and the modal injecting drug user (IDU) aged 20-24. While there are no indicators that prevalence has begun to decline, the extent of the hidden population suggests that around 1 in 7 were receiving some form of treatment for drug use. Available evidence suggests that buprenorphine, temazepam and amphetamines, rather than heroin, are the most commonly injected drugs. These findings should facilitate assessment of the service requirements of this group, and provide a basis from which the number of IDUs infected with HIV and the number likely to progress to AIDS can be determined.