Primary preventive health care among injection drug users, other sustained drug users, and non-users

The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the relationship between sustained illicit drug use and the utilization of primary preventive health care. Data from 1254 African-American, Hispanic/Latino, and non-Hispanic/Latino white men and women collected in 1996-1997 were analyzed to determine independent risk factors for the utilization of primary preventive health care that was not received as a result of seeking treatment for a specific health condition. When several demographic, health, and drug use variables were assessed in a logistic regression model, gender, ethnicity, health insurance status, drug use, and alcohol use were independently associated with primary preventive care. Women, Hispanic/Latinos, and persons who had health insurance were more likely to have received primary preventive health care while injection drug users, other sustained drug users, and "heavy" alcohol users were less likely to have used primary preventive health care services in the past year.