Community-Based Research Ethics

Carmen E. Albizu-García & Salvador Santiago Negrón

Puerto Rico is a major epicenter of the AIDS pandemic, fueled by failed policies directed at illegal drug use. Injecting drug use (IDU), or nonprotected sex with an injecting drug user, accounts for nearly two thirds of all cumulative AIDS cases in the island. Increases in the number of AIDS cases are slightly greater for women compared with men. Although the route of infection for the majority of Puerto Rican women is through heterosexual contact, nearly a third are exposed through heterosexual contact with an injecting drug user. Using injected drugs accounted for 37% of the cumulative AIDS cases among women between 1989 and 1996 (Pérez, Suárez, Pérez, & Morales, 1998). Curtailing the spread of HIV/AIDS among women who use drugs needs to be a public health priority for the island. Research involving drug-using women is necessary to inform all levels of prevention. Given the scant opportunities to obtain drug ...

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