The inaugural Collaborative Family Health Care (CFHA) regional conference took place March 17, 2017, in St. Louis, Missouri. The conference theme was opioid use disorders and the potential of medication-assisted treatment using team-based care to address this epidemic. The conference ended with an emphasis on the importance of and strategies for self-care among caregivers working with this popu...

BACKGROUND In Australia, sterile needles and syringes are distributed to people who inject drugs (PWID) through formal services for the purposes of preventing blood borne viruses (BBV). Peer distribution involves people acquiring needles from formal services and redistributing them to others. This paper investigates the dynamics of the distribution of sterile injecting equipment among networks ...

In 2004, a team comprised of researchers and service providers launched the Safer Crack Use, Outreach, Research and Education (SCORE) project in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The project was aimed at developing a better understanding of the harms associated with crack cocaine smoking and determining the feasibility of introducing specific harm reduction strategie...

Homelessness and drug use often overlap and the harms of substance use are exacerbated by homelessness. Responding to the twin problems of homelessness and substance use is an important aspect of strategies to end homelessness. The introduction and development of ten year plans to end homelessness in North America heralds a new era of systemic responses to homelessness. Central to many of these...

Drawing on lessons learned from community experiences in concentrated epidemics, this paper explores three imperatives in the effort to reduce the sexual transmission of HIV: combat prevention fatigue, diversify HIV testing and combat stigma and discrimination. The paper argues for a non-judgmental harm reduction approach to the prevention of sexual transmission of HIV that takes into account t...

In order to examine the effects of personality and early life experiences on perceived social support, a total of 97 young Japanese women were investigated. Current interpersonal relationships were measured by an interview modified from Henderson et al.'s Interview Schedule for Social Interaction (ISSI). Personality was measured by Cloninger et al.'s Temperament and Character Inventory. Early l...

The AMPHORA Project is a 4 years project funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission which aims to contribute with new evidence on scarcely explored or unexplored areas of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm in Europe. In this introductory article we describe the background of the Project and its main features. The research areas covered by AMPHORA are wide and div...

The Pacific is characterised as a region for the purposes of many international interventions and assistance programmes. Representatives of Pacific States participate in regional fora to build a strategic and unified approach to development. Regionally, bilateral trade agreements impact upon strategies to regulate alcohol imports. Policing and customs initiatives are increasingly supporting pre...

Background: This thesis describes the effects of smokeless tobacco (ST) and its derivatives on the oral mucosa; the development of, and results of applying, a cessation program for snuff users with long and extensive exposure; and, the persistent clinical and histomorphological changes after cessation. Methods: Three of the studies were open prospective non-randomized clinical intervention tria...

BACKGROUND Adolescent self-harm is a major public health concern, yet little is known about the factors that distinguish adolescents who think about self-harm but do not act on these thoughts from those who act on such thoughts. AIMS Within a new theoretical model, the integrated motivational-volitional model, we investigated factors associated with adolescents having thoughts of self-harm (i...