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Peter Higgs

Publications and source records attributed to Peter Higgs.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Engagement, reciprocity and advocacy: ethical harm reduction practice in research with injecting drug users.

In this paper, we contribute to the ethical challenges of harm reduction-based research by describing and reflecting on our experiences of initiating and maintaining relationships with research participants during an innovative neighbourhood-based study of the social and molecular epidemiology of the hepatitis C virus among injecting drug users over a 2-year period. We show through examples of our work how recruitment to our study had practical value for both researchers and study participants including advocacy and reciprocity. We argue that the recruitment process needed to be flexible, able to cope with the demands of the street drug market, and that we as researchers need to engage participants in their own environments as much as possible. We conclude with a series of recommendations for other researchers such as the need to employ appropriately skilled researchers who are flexible, innovative and comfortable in street settings, and for the setting of realistic time-frames for preliminary research, data collection and feedback and analysis.

Biomedical Research↗
PubMed2004

Change in hepatitis C virus genotype in injecting drug users.

Six major genotypes of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) have been described; it is assumed to be uncommon for genotypes to change in chronically infected individuals. Venous blood samples obtained from Vietnamese-Australian injecting drug users who participated in successive studies conducted in Melbourne, Australia, were genotyped using the Bayer line probe assay and genotype confirmed by sequencing whenever possible. Three changes of HCV genotype were observed, and one infection in an individual not exposed previously. The rate of change of genotype was 3 in 11.4 person-years (py), or 26.4 per 100 py (95% CI: 8.5, 81.6). Traditionally-calculated HCV incidence was 1 in 4.3 py, or 23.3 per 100 py (95% CI: 3.3, 165.1). These data imply that HCV genotype change in injecting drug users occurs at least as frequently as infections in naive individuals, and that traditionally-calculated HCV incidence rates represent a minority of actual HCV transmission among practicing injecting drug users.

Genotype↗