The Same Risk, the Different Vulnerability? Social Environment as Risk-generating Factor in Injecting Drug Users and Sex Workers

Abstract

Social epidemiology of blood-borne diseases has been investigated in Belgrade sex workers and injecting drug users. The overall aim of the study was to reveal factors responsible for social epidemiological exposure and vulnerability of the members of those groups, and in this paper some outcomes are discussed, namely those which suggest a little bit different patterns of establishing such vulnerability for injecting drug users and sex workers respectively. It looks like the social environment plays much greater part in producing social epidemiological risk for the sex workers than for the injecting drug users. Factors stemming from the social environment responsible for production of the social epidemiological risk are far more beyond reach and control of the sex workers than it is so with the injecting drug users.