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Volume 21, Number 5—May 2015
Research

Transmission of Hepatitis C Virus among Prisoners, Australia, 2005–2012

Neil Arvin Bretaña, Lies Boelen, Rowena Bull, Suzy Teutsch, Peter A. White, Andrew R. Lloyd, Fabio LucianiComments to Author , on behalf of the HITS-p investigators
Author affiliations: The University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia (N.A. Bretaña, L. Boelen, R. Bull, S. Teutsch, P.A. White, A.R. Lloyd, F. Luciani); Imperial College London, London, UK (L. Boelen)

Main Article

Table 1

Demographic characteristics and lifetime risk behavior of prisoners in New South Wales, Australia, 2005–2012*

Characteristic Infected prisoners/ study cohort, n = 79† Noninfected prisoners, n = 317 p value‡ Infected prisoners excluded, n = 102§ p value¶
Mean (± SD) age, y 28 (7.2) 28 (7.0) 0.71 26 (6.5) 0.13
Median (± SD) time since initiation 
of injecting, y 6.5 (6.3) 7 (6.3) 0.81 7 (6.1) 0.60
Male sex 49 (62) 216 (68) 0.41 60 (59) 0.78
Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander 18 (23) 58 (18) 0.44 37 (36) 0.07
>10 y of education 61 (77) 238 (75) 0.73 84 (82) 0.50
Previously imprisoned 69 (87) 215 (68) 0.001 77 (75) 0.07
Ever had a tattoo 58 (73) 228 (72) 0.84 74 (73) 1
Ever injected drugs in prison 26 (33) 67 (21) 0.04 42 (41) 0.33
Ever shared injecting equipment in prison 23 (29) 61 (19) 0.06 37 (36) 0.43

*Data are expressed as no. (%) unless otherwise indicated. HITS-p, Hepatitis C Incidence and Transmission Study in Prisons.
†Study cohort = viremic participants from the HITS-p cohort.
‡2-sided comparison of participants from the study cohort and noninfected participants from the HITS-p cohort.
§102 prisoners were excluded because they were infected with an HCV genotype other than 1 or 3.
¶2-sided comparison of participants from the study cohort and infected participants excluded from the study.

Main Article

1Additional HITS-p investigators are listed at the end of this article.

Page created: April 20, 2015
Page updated: April 20, 2015
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