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ACR Health is a not-for-profit, community-based organization providing prevention, education, and support services to individuals with chronic diseases including HIV/AIDS, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, asthma, substance use disorders, and serious mental illnesses. ACR Health, a legacy of AIDS Community Resources, serves the 9 counties. Injection drug use is on the rise in the North Country and needs to be addressed.
Over the past five years Watertown has seen a drastic increase in injection drug use by residents (see news article, “Aftermath of an overdose: heroin use on the rise in Jefferson County ” http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20130922/NEWS03/709229866), namely the injection use of heroin and methamphetamine. Data analysis indicates that drug-related HIV prevalence in Jefferson County is 52% for males and 21% for females (AIDSvu.org, 2013). Furthermore, in Jefferson County there are an additional 5% of newly diagnosed HIV positive individuals who self-identified as MSM/IDU, a particularly high risk subgroup. NYSDOH data (2008) reports that chronic viral hepatitis C prevalence for Watertown is 59.7 cases per 100,000 individuals and is identified as having the highest rate among ACR Health’s 9-county service area. (NYS rate, excluding NYC, is listed as 59.6 for the year 2008.) Data from ACR Health’s June 2013 needs assessment demonstrate equally troubling are indicators, particularly in opioid hospitalization discharge rates. Discharges for cocaine hospitalization were also high in Jefferson County with a rate of 102 and Watertown has a rate of 212.
ACR’s Safety First Syringe Exchange Program (SEP) not only provides new sterile syringes and other safer injection supplies, they helps injection drug users (IDUs) adopt behaviors which reduce their risk of contracting HIV or viral hepatitis while offering risk reduction counseling and referrals to HIV/STD/Hepatitis counseling and testing, health care, substance use programs, and social services and much more.
ACR’s (SEP) is a prevention strategy that is proven to work. The AIDS Institute of the New York State Department of Health estimates that the twenty-one established syringe exchange programs may be responsible for at least a 50 percent and possibly as much as a 75 percent decline in rates of new HIV infection. |
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| 1. What type of organization or agency are you affiliated with: |
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| 2. What counties do you serve? Please list | | |
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| 3. Approximately how many of your clients are Injection Drug Users (IDU’s)? (if you do not have IDU clients then skip to question 6) | | |
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| 4. Approximately what percentage of your total clients are IDU’s? | | |
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| 5. What substances are your IDU clients injecting( check all that apply): |
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| 6. From you perspective, what are the most commonly used injection substances in Watertown/Jefferson County? | | |
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| 7. What do you feel are the risks of having a Syringe Exchange Program locally (check all that apply); |
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| 8. What do you think are the benefits of having a Syringe Exchange Program locally: |
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| 9. Have you refer anyone to the Syracuse Syringe Exchange Program (SEP)? Approximately how many? | | |
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| 10. If there was a Syringe Exchange Program in Jefferson County, would you refer your clients to it? | | |
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| 11. Do you believe the establishment of SEP is needed in the Watertown/Jefferson county Area? Explain | | |
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| 12. Do you have any further comments regarding a Syringe Exchange Program in Watertown/Jefferson County? | | |
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