Diana Rossi

Diana Rossi
University of Buenos Aires | UBA · Faculty of Social Sciences

Bachelor of Social Work

About

54
Publications
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Introduction
Diana Rossi is a Social Worker and Specialist in youngsters’ social problems from the University of Buenos Aires. She was professor and researcher of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires until 2019. She is a founding member of Intercambios Civil Association, an Argentinean non-governmental organization working on research, training, advocacy and community interventions with drug related problems to ensure the health and human rights of drug users

Publications

Publications (54)
Article
Big Events are periods during which abnormal large-scale events like war, economic collapse, revolts, or pandemics disrupt daily life and expectations about the future. They can lead to rapid change in health-related norms, beliefs, social networks and behavioural practices. The world is undergoing such Big Events through the interaction of COVID-1...
Article
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Large-scale structural interventions and “Big Events” like revolutions, wars and major disasters can affect HIV transmission by changing the sizes of at-risk populations, making high-risk behaviors more or less likely, or changing contexts in which risk occurs. This paper describes new measures to investigate hypothesized pathways that could connec...
Article
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Attacks on peoples’ dignity help to produce and maintain stigmatization and interpersonal hostility. As part of an effort to develop innovative measures of possible pathways between structural interventions or socially-disruptive Big Events and HIV outbreaks, we developed items to measure dignity denial. These measures were administered to 300 peop...
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BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Despite advances in our knowledge of effective services for people who use drugs over the last decades globally, coverage remains poor in most countries, while quality is often unknown. This paper aims to discuss the historical development of successful epidemiological indicators and to present a framework for extending them wi...
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The coinfection with Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi) and HIV is a relevant clinical event. The goal of this study was to establish the frequency of coinfection in populations at risk for HIV-1 in Argentina. A total of 280 HIV positive serum samples from HIV seroprevalence studies in HIV at-risk groups were tested for T.cruzi infection. Of those sample...
Article
Full-text available
Macro-social/structural events (“big events”) such as wars, disasters, and large-scale changes in policies can affect HIV transmission by making risk behaviors more or less likely or by changing risk contexts. The purpose of this study was to develop new measures to investigate hypothesized pathways between macro-social changes and HIV transmission...
Chapter
In Argentina the policy on drugs was developed during the twentieth century, privileging the criminal prosecution as it main tool. Since the 1920s, when the first modification to the penal code related to these substances was devised, various reforms and discourses that expand that response by toughening the penalties have been implemented. Althoug...
Article
The term “Big Events” began as a way to help understand how wars, transitions and other crises shape long-term HIV epidemiology in affected areas. It directs attention to the roles of ordinary people in shaping these outcomes. Big Events themselves can take years, as in long-term armed struggles like those in Colombia and also long-term political a...
Article
Struggles over dignity and dignity denial are a central facet of class struggles and other struggles under capitalism. Marxist theory, however, has not developed an adequate understanding of dignity denial or of struggles against it as a crucial part of capitalism and its dialectic. This paper discusses dignity denial as inherent both in a society...
Article
Economic and political instability and related "big events" are widespread throughout the globe. Although they sometimes lead to epidemic HIV outbreaks, sometimes they do not-and we do not understand why. Current behavioural theories do not adequately address these processes, and thus cannot provide optimal guidance for effective intervention. Base...
Article
Este artículo desarrolla los fundamentos metodológicos del diseño de análisis integrado a partir de su empleo para el estudio de situaciones de vulnerabilidad entre usuarios de drogas a nivel regional. Se integraron datos de trece estudios transversales realizados en Argentina, Brasil y Uruguay entre 1998 y 2004. Una revisión crítica del concepto d...
Article
This paper develops the methodological principles of pooled analysis design, using it to study situations of vulnerability among drug users at a regional level. Data from thirteen cross-sectional studies carried out in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay between 1998 and 2004 were integrated. A critical review of the concept of data matrix which identifi...
Article
Full-text available
This paper develops the methodological principles of pooled analysis design, using it to study situations of vulnerability among drug users at a regional level. Data from thirteen cross-sectional studies carried out in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay between 1998 and 2004 were integrated. A critical review of the concept of data matrix which identifi...
Article
Discussions of drug policy tend not to consider whether the stated goals of policies are an accurate statement of what they are meant to do and also may not consider the fact that what benefits some people may harm others. We explore these issues and present an agenda for research in this area that, while not eliminating these difficulties, both il...
Article
Full-text available
Economic and political instability and related "big events" are widespread throughout the globe. Although they sometimes lead to epidemic HIV outbreaks, sometimes they do not—and we do not understand why. Current behavioural theories do not adequately address these processes, and thus cannot provide optimal guidance for effective intervention. Base...
Article
Epidemics have been important in human history. This article discusses epidemics as part of a metabolic dialectics of humanity within nature. The creative thoughts and actions of those people most threatened by HIV/AIDS, and the thoughts and actions of science, have shaped both each other and the virus. The virus has reacted through mutation in way...
Article
Full-text available
In some countries, "Big Events" like crises and transitions have been followed by large increases in drug use, drug injection and HIV/AIDS. Argentina experienced an economic crisis and political transition in 2001/2002 that affected how people use their time. This paper studies how time use changes between years 2001 and 2004, subsequent to these e...
Article
Full-text available
An HIV incidence estimation was performed among men who have sex with men (MSM), drug users (DUs), sex workers (SWs), and pregnant women (PW) from Argentina. Volunteers older than 18 years old without a previous HIV-positive diagnosis were included. HIV-positive samples were analyzed by the Serological Testing Algorithm for Recent HIV Seroconversio...
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To investigate the factors associated with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection among non-injecting cocaine users (NICUs) and to compare practices associated with HCV and HIV infection. An intercountry cross-sectional study. Setting  Buenos Aires and Montevideo metropolitan areas. A total of 871 NICUs. NICUs were interviewed and their blood was drawn...
Article
Aims: To determine if measures of drug use risk, sexual risk, external norms and internalized norms developed for impoverished neighbourhoods of New York are usable in similar neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires and have similar associations with each other in the two cities despite the many cultural, social, economic and political differences between t...
Article
The aim is to estimate HBV prevalence and the associated risks among noninjecting cocaine users (NICUs). In 2002-2003, a total of 824 NICUs from Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Montevideo (Uruguay) were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. Serologic tests were carried out for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), hepatitis B (HBV), syphilis, an...
Chapter
Full-text available
Drug policies in several countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have been influenced by the regions' neighbor to the north, the United States. Pressures to eradicate drug production have resulted in human rights violations of coca farmers and surrounding communities, and have not stemmed the tide of cultivation. At the same time, punitive app...
Article
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Political-economic transitions in the Soviet Union, Indonesia, and China, but not the Philippines, were followed by HIV epidemics among drug users. Wars also may sometimes increase HIV risk. Based on similarities in some of the causal pathways through which wars and transitions can affect HIV risk, we use the term "Big Events" to include both. We f...
Article
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The aim of this study was to estimate the seroprevalence rates of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV, core antibody), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and syphilis infections and analyze associated risk factors among 504 non-injecting cocaine users (NICU) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Participants were interviewed in face-to-face sess...
Conference Paper
Major epidemics shape human history and are shaped by the era in which they emerge and by human responses to them. HIV/AIDS is not merely historical but also dialectical. Since HIV began to spread, the dialectical processes of human history have clearly shaped it. On the microsocial level, drug users in New York may have been the first to recognize...
Article
Risk networks can transmit HIV or other infections; social networks can transmit social influence and thus help shape norms and behaviors. This primarily-theoretical paper starts with a review of network concepts, and then presents data from a New York network study to study patterns of sexual and injection linkages among IDUs and other drug users...
Article
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The paper reviews the main findings from substance misuse research carried out over the last two decades in South America looking at the main initiatives aimed at reducing drug related harm and curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted and blood-borne diseases. The current challenges faced by harm reduction in the region are ana...
Article
This paper discusses the user side of harm reduction, focusing to some extent on the early responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in each of four sets of localities-New York City, Rotterdam, Buenos Aires, and sites in Central Asia. Using available qualitative and quantitative information, we present a series of vignettes about user activities in four d...
Article
Full-text available
Using the serological testing algorithm for recent HIV seroconversion, we estimated annualized incidences (per 100 person-years) of HIV-1 infection in different at-risk groups in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, during a 5-year period between 1998 and 2003. HIV-positive serum samples from 9 serosurveys conducted among men who have sex with men, patient...
Article
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This article discusses the changes in injecting drug use from 1998 to 2003 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Rapid Situation Assessment and Response methodology was used to obtain the information. Quantitative and qualitative techniques were triangulated: 140 current IDUs and 35 sex partners of injection drug users (IDUs) were surveyed; 17 in-depth i...
Article
Full-text available
Some, but not all, "big events" such as wars, revolutions, socioeconomic transitions, economic collapses, and ecological disasters in recent years seem to lead to large-scale HIV outbreaks (Friedman et al, in press; Hankins et al 2002). This was true of transitions in the USSR, South Africa and Indonesia, for example, but not those in the Philippin...
Article
The presence of recombinant intersubtypes of HIV-1 in Argentina has been reported since the mid-1990s. In this study, sequences of a region of the gag, pol, and vpu genes of HIV-1 were analyzed in samples of 21 injection drug users (IDUs) residing in the suburbs of the city of Buenos Aires. Genomic characterization and identification of recombinati...
Article
The aim of this study was to compile published data and to describe the prevalences of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection among injection drug users (IDUs) in different populations studied in Argentina from 1987 through 1999. Twenty-two studies of HIV infection in the IDU population were selected, and 6 subject groups were defined: outpat...
Article
Thirty-nine percent of Argentineans living with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome were infected with human immunodeficiency virus through the injection of drugs. However, it was not until the 1990s that harm reduction programs were created. Research and outreach projects have been developed to identify and interact with the hidden injection drug u...
Article
Full-text available
Injection drug use is the main mechanism of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission in Argentina (40% of reported AIDS cases in Argentina). This study was conducted among street-recruited injection drug users (IDUs) from Buenos Aires, with the aim of estimating seroprevalence and coinfection of HIV, hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C viru...
Article
Many organisations with treatment programs for drug users based on abstinence principles rule that sexual intercourse is forbidden while drug users are still under treatment. Most of these people suffer due to the lack of hard institutional regulations when they return to their social environment. Thus, working with preventive issues, especially sa...
Article
In Argentina, the prevailing drug policy is based on a ‘drug free society’ approach. It is worth pointing out that since the 1970s there has been an important influence by USA drug policy on drug policy in Argentina. We find a high incidence of HIV transmission among injecting drug users and high levels of social exclusion. In the Argentinean conte...
Article
In Argentina, the prevailing drug policy is based on a ‘drug free society’ approach. It is worth pointing out that since the 1970s there has been an important influence by USA drug policy on drug policy in Argentina. We find a high incidence of HIV transmission among injecting drug users and high levels of social exclusion. In the Argentinean conte...
Article
In Argentina a high percentage of AIDS cases has been observed associated with the shared use of the injection apparatus (41%) and with unprotected sexual relations. Taking into consideration that users of injectable drugs frequent chemists in order to buy syringes, the civil association Intercambios carried out the campaign 'The chemist as a preve...

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