Collins KM, Armenta RF, Cuevas-Mota J, Liu L, Strathdee SA, Garfein RS. (2016). Factors associated with patterns of mobile technology use among persons who inject drugs. Substance Abuse. 37(4): 606-612. PMCID: PMC5125293
The authors examined mobile technology utilization (MTU) by people who inject drugs to assess the potential feasibility of mHealth interventions for this population. Four hundred and sixty-one participants were recruited from an existing participant pool of people who inject drugs in southern California. Participants completed surveys using computer assisted personal interviewing about their demographics including housing status, health status, MTU, histories of substance use, injection equipment sharing behavior, exchanging sex for drugs or money, selling drugs, and use of health or harm reduction services. Participants were sorted into four classes based on their likelihood for MTU. The majority of participants (66.2%) currently owned a cell phone and 28.6% currently owned a smartphone. Similar numbers of participants with cellphones had contract plans (40%) and prepaid plans (39%). Participants who had more than a high school education, sold drugs, injected methamphetamine daily, or currently owned a smartphone were more likely to have high MTU. Participants who were older or homeless were less likely to have MTU. These results support the potential for some mHealth interventions (e.g. interventions that can be accessed by cellphones without internet access) to reach some people who inject drugs, but homelessness and older age are barriers to access to mobile technology among the injection drug population.