Karen Dunleavy

My research interests include infections among people who inject drugs (PWIDs) particularly skin and soft tissue infections and spore forming bacterial infections; harm reduction for PWIDs; healthcare seeking behaviours of PWIDs; legal high injecting and injecting in prisons.

I am currently involved in a collaborative research projects examining:

• the uptake of foil from services and its role in harm reduction among people who inject drugs. This is a collaboration with NHS Public Health Scotland. 

Past projects have examined: 

• PWIDs views of their skin and soft tissue infections, their healthcare seeking and harm reduction behaviours. This was a collaboration with NHS Health Protection Scotland and Liverpool John Moores University.
• the impact of a postcard alerting PWIDs to a botulism outbreak In Glasgow. This was a collaboration with NHS Health Protection Scotland.
• injecting new psychoactive substances. This was a collaboration with Dundee University.

To be involved in and develop further research examining: interventions to help PWIDs avoid or deal with skin and soft tissue infections; harm reduction and injecting behaviours for PWIDs.

NHS

Colleagues based at other HE institutions e.g. Liverpool John Moores University, Dundee University, Glasgow Caledonian University