Ms Samantha Colledge presented at the 2020 NDARC Webinar Series on Thursday, 27 August 2020.

This seminar offers background and insight into the often-neglected harms that people who inject drugs commonly experience.

Non-viral injecting related injuries and diseases, such as skin and soft tissue infections and blood clots, are incredibly common among people who inject illicit drugs. Unfortunately, treatment for these harms is often postponed or neglected, leading to worse prognosis and disability. Using a sentinel sample of people who inject drugs in Australia, we looked at the prevalence of a range of these harms, as well as how participants clustered together based on reporting the various types.

Speaker Bio:
Ms Samantha Colledge, PhD candidate, BPsycSc
Research Assistant, NDARC

Samantha is in the third year of her PhD at NDARC and has published work on harms relating to injecting drug use. Specifically, she has led and assisted with reviews investigating overdose, mental health problems, blood borne viruses and characteristics of people who inject drugs. She is currently investigating injecting-related injuries and diseases as part of the final chapters of her thesis.