Basmattee Boodram

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Associate) at University of Illinois Chicago

Global elimination of chronic hepatitis C (CHC) remains difficult without an effective vaccine. Since injection drug use is the leading cause of hepatitis C virus (HCV) transmission in Western Europe and North America, people who inject drugs (PWID) are an important population for testing HCV vaccine effectiveness in randomized-clinical trials (RCT...

Importance Opioid-related overdose accounts for almost 80 000 deaths annually across the US. People who use drugs leaving jails are at particularly high risk for opioid-related overdose and may benefit from take-home naloxone (THN) distribution. Objective To estimate the population impact of THN distribution at jail release to reverse opioid-relat...

Objective Using an innovative data sharing model, we assessed the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health of people who inject drugs (PWID). Design The PWID Data Collaborative was established in 2021 to promote data sharing across PWID studies in North America. Contributing studies submitted aggregate data on 23 standardized indicators duri...

Access to treatment and medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) is essential in reducing opioid use and associated behavioral risks, such as syringe sharing among persons who inject drugs (PWID). Syringe sharing among PWID carries high risk of transmission of serious infections such as hepatitis C and HIV. MOUD resources, such as methadone provid...

Despite the availability of direct-acting antivirals that cure individuals infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), developing a vaccine is critically needed in achieving HCV elimination. HCV vaccine trials have been performed in populations with high incidence of new HCV infection such as people who inject drugs (PWID). Developing strategies of...

Background Recent studies underscore the significance of adopting a syndemics approach to study opioid misuse, overdose, hepatitis C (HCV) and HIV infections, within the broader context of social and environmental contexts in already marginalized communities. Social interactions and spatial contexts are crucial structural factors that remain relati...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic amplified the risk environment for people who inject drugs (PWID), making continued access to harm reduction services imperative. Research has shown that some harm reduction service providers were able to continue to provide services throughout the pandemic. Most of these studies, however, focused on staff perspecti...

Social support plays a crucial role in enhancing the effectiveness of biomedical treatments and interventions for individuals involved in drug use, criminal legal matters, or experiencing downstream health challenges such as HIV or overdose. We develop a conceptual model – The Science of Social Support (S3) model that is based upon the extant liter...

Despite increases in injection drug use, depression, and fatal overdose among young people (aged 18–30) during the last 15–20 years, and despite literature among other populations finding relationships between various types of stigma and mental health outcomes, to date, there have been no studies examining the relationship between substance use-rel...

Background Sharing of syringes is the leading transmission pathway for hepatitis C (HCV) infections. The extent to which HCV can spread among people who inject drugs (PWID) is largely dependent on syringe-sharing network factors. Our study aims to better understand partnership characteristics and syringe and equipment sharing with those partners, i...

Background: Access to treatment and medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), such as methadone, is essential for improving health outcomes by reducing infection and overdose risks associated with injection drug use. MOUD resource distribution, however, is often a complex interplay of social and structural factors that result in nuanced patterns r...

Background: Opioid use has been increasing at alarming rates over the past 15 years, yet uptake of medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) remains low. Much of the research on individual characteristics predicting MOUD uptake is equivocal, and there is a dearth of research on setting-level and network-level characteristics that predict MOUD upta...

Latinx people who inject drugs (PWID) are less likely to engage in injection equipment sharing, but are more vulnerable to injection drug use (IDU)-related morbidity and mortality than Whites. Identifying subgroups of Latinx PWID who do engage in equipment sharing and likely bear the brunt of this health burden is a priority. Ethnic disparities may...

Background: It is estimated that there are 1.5% US adult population who inject drugs in 2018, with young adults aged 18-39 showing the highest prevalence. PWID are at a high risk of many blood-borne infections. Recent studies have highlight the importance of employing the syndemic approach to study opioid misuse, overdose, HCV and HIV, along with t...

Background. Sharing of syringes is the leading transmission pathway for hepatitis C (HCV) infections. The extent to which HCV can spread among people who inject drugs (PWID) is largely dependent on syringe-sharing network factors. Our study aims to better understand partnership characteristics and syringe and equipment sharing with those partners,...

Background Hepatitis C (HCV) infection has been rising in the suburban and rural USA, mainly via injection-based transmission. Injection and sexual networks are recognized as an important element in fostering and preventing risky behavior; however, the role of social support networks has received somewhat less attention. Methods Using baseline dat...

People who inject drugs (PWID) are a population that disproportionately struggles with economic and mental health challenges. However, despite numerous reports of people globally experiencing new or exacerbated economic and/or mental health challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, the literature on the effect of the pandemic on PWID and their risk...

Background In many countries with high levels of COVID-19 vaccine access, uptake remains a major issue. We examined prospective predictors of COVID-19 vaccine uptake in a United States longitudinal study. Methods An online longitudinal study on COVID-19 and well-being assessed vaccine hesitancy attitudes, social norms, and uptake among 444 respond...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a leading cause of chronic liver disease and mortality worldwide. Direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy leads to high cure rates. However, persons who inject drugs (PWID) are at risk for reinfection after cure and may require multiple DAA treatments to reach the World Health Organization’s (WHO) goal of HCV elim...

Progress toward hepatitis C virus (HCV) elimination in the United States is not on track to meet targets set by the World Health Organization, as the opioid crisis continues to drive both injection drug use and increasing HCV incidence. A pragmatic approach to achieving this is using a microelimination approach of focusing on high-risk populations...

Background Hepatitis C (HCV) infection has been rising in the suburban and rural United States, mainly via injection-based transmission. Injection and sexual networks are recognized as an important element in fostering and preventing risky behavior, however the role of social support networks has received somewhat less attention. Methods Using bas...

Background Hepatitis C infection could be eliminated. Underdiagnosis and lack of treatment are the barriers to cure, especially for vulnerable populations (i.e. unable to pay for health care). Methods A multilevel intervention from September 2014 to September 2019 focused on the providers and organizations in ‘the safety net’ (providing health car...

Criminal justice involved (CJI) individuals with a history of opioid use disorder (OUD) are at high risk of overdose and death in the weeks following release from jail. We developed the Justice-Community Circulation Model (JCCM) to investigate OUD/CJI dynamics post-release and the effects of interventions on overdose deaths. The JCCM uses a synthet...

Background Among young people who inject drugs (PWID) homelessness is associated with numerous adverse psychosocial and health consequences, including risk of relapse and overdose, psychological distress and suicidality, limited treatment access, and injection practices that increase the risk of HIV and hepatitis C (HCV) transmission. Homeless PWID...

Background Among young people who inject drugs (PWID) homelessness is associated with numerous adverse psychosocial and health consequences, including risk of relapse and overdose, psychological distress and suicidality, limited treatment access, and injection practices that increase the risk of HIV and hepatitis C (HCV) transmission. Homeless PWID...

Individuals with a history of opioid use are disproportionately represented in Illinois jails and prisons and face high risks of overdose and relapse at community reentry. Case management and peer recovery coaching are established interventions that may be leveraged to improve linkage to substance use treatment and supportive services during these...

Progress toward hepatitis C virus (HCV) elimination in the United States is not on track to meet targets, as injection drug use continues to drive increasing HCV incidence. Computational models are useful in understanding the complex interplay of individual, social, and structural level factors that might alter HCV incidence, prevalence, transmissi...

Background Identifying risk for hepatitis C (HCV) infection is important for understanding recent increases in HCV incidence among young people who inject drugs (PWID) in suburban and rural areas; and for refining the targeting of effective HCV preventive interventions. Much of the extant research has focused on individual health behaviors (e.g., r...

We conducted a longitidinal assessment of 806 respondents in March, 2020 in the US to examine the trustworthiness of sources of information about COVID-19. Respondents were recontacted after four months. Information sources included mainstream media, state health departments, the CDC, the White House, and a well-known university. We also examined h...

Receptive syringe sharing (RSS) among people who inject drugs (PWID) is a risk factor for hepatitis C virus and HIV infections. PWID with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have increased risk of RSS, but it remains unclear what drives this association. This study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to study characteristics associated wit...

An estimated 4.1 million people in the United States are infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV). In 2014, the Hepatitis C Community Alliance to Test and Treat (HepCCATT) collaborative was formed to address hepatitis C in Chicago. From 2014 to 2017, the HepCCATT Case Management Program case managed 181 HCV-infected people and performed on-site capaci...

Hepatitis C (HCV) is a leading cause of chronic liver disease and mortality worldwide and persons who inject drugs (PWID) are at the highest risk for acquiring and transmitting HCV infection. We developed an agent-based model (ABM) to identify and optimize direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy scale-up and treatment strategies for achieving the Wor...

BACKGROUND Increasing opioid use among young people contributes to multiple harms including overdose, and HIV and hepatitis C virus infections. OBJECTIVE We conducted a pilot study to address challenges in recruiting young suburban residents for research on opioid use and risk behavior. METHODS We used a multi-pronged advertising strategy to recr...

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is common among people who inject drugs (PWID) and is associated with receptive syringe sharing (RSS). This study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to study associations between emotion dysregulation, a characteristic of BPD, and patterns of negative affect and RSS among PWID. We recruited PWID, age 18...

Hepatitis C (HCV) is a leading cause of chronic liver disease and mortality worldwide. Persons who inject drugs (PWID) are at the highest risk for acquiring and transmitting HCV infection. We developed an agent-based model (ABM) to identify and optimize direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy scale-up and treatment strategies for achieving the World...

Background and aims Persons who inject drugs (PWID) are at highest risk for acquiring and transmitting hepatitis C (HCV) infection. The recent availability of oral direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy with reported cure rates >90% can prevent HCV transmission, making HCV elimination an attainable goal among PWID. The World Health Organization (WHO...

The major route of hepatitis C virus (HCV) transmission in the United States is injection drug use. We hypothesized that if an HCV vaccine were available, vaccination could affect HCV transmission among people who inject drugs by reducing HCV titers after viral exposure without necessarily achieving sterilizing immunity. To investigate this possibi...

Background: Monitoring the effects of HIV prevention efforts among persons who inject drugs (PWID) is key to informing prevention programs and policy. Methods: Data for this study came from the 2012 National HIV Behavioral Surveillance interviews with PWID across 20 U.S. cities. The present analyses include those who identified as female, ever h...

Aims: To test the acceptability and feasibility of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) of mood and injection risk behavior among young people who inject drugs (PWID), using mobile phones. Methods: Participants were 185 PWID age 18-35 recruited from two sites of a large syringe service program in Chicago. After completing a baseline interview,...

Young people in the USA who inject drugs, particularly those at a risk of residence instability, experience the highest incidence of hepatitis C (HCV) infections. This study examined associations between geographic mobility patterns and sociodemographic, behavioral, and social network characteristics of 164 young (ages 18–30) persons who inject dru...

Background: Monitoring the effects of HIV prevention efforts on risk behaviors among persons who inject drugs is a key to inform prevention programs and policy. Methods: Using data from the 2012 National HIV Behavioral Surveillance interviews with persons who inject drugs across 20 US cities (n = 10,171), we conducted latent class analysis to id...

Persons who inject drugs (PWID) may be at risk of acquiring HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) from risky sexual practices and elevated disease prevalence within their drug injection and sexual networks. We conducted a personal (egocentric) network study of young PWID (aged 18-30) from the Chicago metropolitan area. Logistic regression...

People who inject drugs (PWID) are at high risk for blood-borne pathogens transmitted during the sharing of contaminated injection equipment, particularly hepatitis C virus (HCV). HCV prevalence is influenced by a complex interplay of drug-use behaviors, social networks, and geography, as well as the availability of interventions, such as needle ex...

Background/aim: New direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) provide an opportunity to combat hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in persons who inject drugs (PWID). Here we use a mathematical model to predict the impact of a DAA-treatment scale-up on HCV prevalence among PWID and the estimated cost in metropolitan Chicago. Methods: To estimate the HCV ant...

People who inject drugs (PWID) are at high risk for blood-borne pathogens transmitted during the sharing of contaminated injection equipment, particularly hepatitis C virus (HCV). To adequately address this complexity in HCV epidemic forecasting, we have developed a computational model, the Agent-based Pathogen Kinetics model (APK). APK simulates t...

Background: In recent years, injection drug use has increasingly been located in non-Hispanic white suburban communities rather than in poor urban neighborhoods. Little is known about this new generation of persons who inject drugs (PWID) or their social networks pertaining to risk factors for drug initiation and transmission of HIV and hepatitis C...

Aims: This study examined parents’ responses to a family-based harm reduction intervention for young injection drug users (YIDUs). Methods: The intervention was comprised of group education sessions for parents, and three case-management sessions: for the parent only, YIDU only, and for parent and YIDU together. The design included a delayed interv...

: This article reviews the current issues and advancements in social network approaches to HIV prevention and care. Social network analysis can provide a method to understand health disparities in HIV rates, treatment access, and outcomes. Social network analysis is a valuable tool to link social structural factors to individual behaviors. Social n...

The study of social networks is essential to understanding the spread of infectious diseases. This study reviews strategies for collecting whole (that is, sociometric) network data for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention. Using selected criteria, peer-reviewed journal articles published from 1980 to 2012 were searched in ISI Web of Knowle...

Objective: Assess non-prescribed legal opioid (NP-LO) use prior to heroin initiation by young non-injecting heroin users (NIHU). Methods: NIHU 16-30 years old recruited through street outreach and respondent-driven methods completed computerized self-administered interviews. A subset engaged in qualitative interviews. Results: Between 6-2002 and 1-...

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of transitioning from non-injection heroin use to injection drug use on sexual risk behavior. Non-injecting heroin users age 16-30 were enrolled from 2002 to 2005, and were re-interviewed at 6-month intervals for up to three years; 561 participants completed at least one follow-up interview. The...

Chronic hepatitis C (HCV) infection, defined as persistent RNA (viral load) for at least 6 months, accounts for up to 50% of all cirrhosis, end-stage liver disease and liver cancer cases. Moreover, elevated HCV viral load is consistently associated with high infectivity and poor therapy response. This study aims to identify modifiable behavioral co...

Our study examined the association between GB virus C (GBV-C) and (i) hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection status, (ii) biomedical indicators of liver disease (alanine and aspartate aminotransferases) and (iii) HCV RNA level among young injection drug users (IDUs) recruited using street outreach and respondent-driven methods. Cross-sectional and longi...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection prevalence among young injection drug users (IDUs) differs substantially between cities in the United States (U.S.). Between 2002 and 2004, IDUs aged 15-30 were recruited for the Third Collaborative Injection Drug User Study in five U.S. cities using respondent-driven methods. Our cross-sectional study examined cor...

Since the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and the subsequent increased life expectancy in HIV-infected persons, non-HIV-related diseases have become an important cause of morbidity and mortality. This cross-sectional study reports the prevalence of overweight and obesity, and sociodemographic, psychological, and substan...

The association of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes with the outcome of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection may be modified by ethnic and geographical differences. HLA-A, -C, -DRB1 and -DQB1 genotyping were performed in a Midwestern American cohort of 105 HCV infected subjects among which 49 cleared HCV infection and 56 had persistent viral infect...

Objective: Delineate factors associated with HCV prevalence among non-Hispanic (NH) white IDUs from Chicago (n=586) and Baltimore (n=736). Methods: IDUs 15-30 years old participated in the Third Collaborative Injection Drug Users Study/Drug User Intervention Trial through street outreach and respondent-driven recruiting. Baseline computerized, self...