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Health Services Research Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Marshall University

2023

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Full-Text Articles in Health Services Research

Effects Of The Needle Exchange Program And Its Current Status In West Virginia, Thomas Norton, Amber Graves, Anthony Uriarte, Katherine Duty, Alberto Coustasse Mar 2023

Effects Of The Needle Exchange Program And Its Current Status In West Virginia, Thomas Norton, Amber Graves, Anthony Uriarte, Katherine Duty, Alberto Coustasse

Management Faculty Research

Excerpt:
One of the main problems that have impacted the state of healthcare in West Virginia has been the rising costs of treatments for bloodborne infections (Bates et al., 2019). Bloodborne pathogens and their resulting diseases have commonly spread by exchanging contaminated needles (Denault & Gardner, 2021). In West Virginia, Needle Exchange Programs (NEPs) have been implemented to reduce the transmission of certain infections, such as HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C, which have been more common among drug users (Beck & Kersey, 2018). In 2015, West Virginia had the second-highest rate of cases of hepatitis C Virus (HCV) in …