Publication Highlights

People who use drugs experience high levels of stigma (1, 2), with stigma among people who inject drugs particularly high due to potential associations with blood borne viruses, and greater social disadvantage and vulnerabilities (e.g., homelessness, transactional sex) (3).

Stigma can occur within multiple settings, including alcohol and other drug (AOD) treatment settings, as well as generalist healthcare settings (4). Indeed, Paquette et al (2018) found that people who inject drugs face near constant stigma when accessing healthcare, which can range from subtle interpersonal interactions to explicit forms of inferior healthcare.

These experiences of stigma and discrimination can have significant impacts on health and well-being and can result in future reluctance to attend health services for prevention, care and treatment (5), as well as reluctance to disclose their drug use or other issues (e.g., pain) (6). This has significant implications for the health and well-being of people who drugs. Much of the existing literature in this area has focused on people who inject drugs, with considerably less known about experiences of stigma among other groups of people who use drugs.

This bulletin aims to explore this research gap by examining levels of stigma among two samples of people who use drugs when visiting both AOD and general health services.

Read the full publication via the NDARC website.