Steffanie Strathdee is trying to stop the spread of HIV along the U.S.-Mexico border, and prevent epidemics in both countries. Strathdee is an associate dean of Global Health Sciences at the University of California San Diego. She’s been studying injection drug users in Tijuana, Mexico. It’s the busiest border crossing in the world, and one with increasing rates of HIV infection.

Steffanie Strathdee: HIV is socially produced. We shouldn’t be putting the blame on individuals for engaging in high-risk behaviors.

Strathdee said the major finding of her study was that male drug users who had been deported from the U.S. were at four times greater risk than other male drug users of contracting HIV. She suggested that deportation might heighten their sense of isolation, as has been shown for other migrants.

Steffanie Strathdee:They may be separated from their family, and more likely to see a sex worker for example, because they haven’t seen their wife for many years. HIV may then be transmitted to their wives when they return home.

To prevent disease, Strathdee is an advocate of methods like drug treatment, smart policing, sex education and needle exchange programs.

Strathdee: If you provide somebody with a sterile syringe, that costs 10 cents, but that could prevent that person from becoming infected with HIV, and so it’s a question of whether people want to pay now or pay later, because this is an incredible burden on the health care system.

And it’s cheaper, she said, to provide someone with a 10 cent sterile needle rather than pay for $100,000 anti-retroviral treatment for AIDS. Dr. Strathdee added that over 50 million migrants travel north into the United States each year from Tijuana, where her study was based. She said migrant populations are important to target because they can sow the seeds of a disease epidemic on both sides of the border. Strathdee founded an organization called PrevenCasa, which helps run needle exchange programs in Tijuana.

Steffanie Strathdee: Providing somebody with a sterile syringe, if they choose to keep injecting, will prevent them from getting infected with HIV and other blood borne pathogens. This will also protect their sexual partners and their offspring. However, it’s important to give those people access to drug treatment as well. Drug treatment can promote abstinence.

She added that her study was funded by the National Institutes on Drug Abuse, a division of the NIH, or National Institutes of Health.