ABSTRACT
Health promotion strategies (such as health education programs) have shown some success in the general population and much of this thinking has inuenced the programs implemented with IDUs such as ‘safe using messages’ aimed at preventing overdose and BBV transmission. However, there is a small, but growing, literature which documents examples of when human desires and preferences mean that health behaviour is prioritised lower than other considerations. is has been seen in regard to the use of condoms [7,8], dietary habits [9,10] and smoking [11,12]. e majority of interventions targeted at overdose have revolved around ‘safe using messages.’ Typical messages include: ‘don’t mix your drugs,’ ‘split the dose,’ ‘always use with a friend,’ ‘use where you can be found’ and ‘watch your tolerance’ [13]. Whilst there is abundant literature describing program implementation of safe using messages, there are no evaluative studies of such strategies. e main intervention targeted at reducing BBV transmission has been needle and syringe programs (NSPs) and their associated safe using messages. Such messages include: ‘don’t share needles,’ don’t reuse needles’ and ‘don’t share other injecting equipment.’ Because of the logically combined nature of these interventions, the eectiveness of health promotion messages alone remains untested, but such programs appear to have limited success in reducing some harms compared to others, especially in relation to overdose prevention and HCV transmission. While there have been some investigations around risk behaviour in marginalised groups [e.g. [14,15]], these studies have not investigated the role of attitudes towards death and how indierent attitudes aect the relevance of health promotion messages. is study sought to understand some potential barriers for IDUs acting on health information, investigating their attitudes towards drug taking and death and how such attitudes may impact upon the eectiveness of safe using messages.
