Peer education for people who inject drugs in New South Wales: Advantages, unanticipated benefits and challenges

Aims: This article reports on an evaluation of a community-controlled peer education project led by a drug user organization (DUO) that aimed to contribute to hepatitis C prevention. This article also examines broader contextual issues, particularly the funding and governance arrangements affecting the conduct of peer education. Method: This project was evaluated in three sites in New South Wales, Australia. Monthly activity reports were completed by peer educators. Interviews were conducted with five groups of stakeholders: peer educators, peers, staff of the DUO, staff of non-government and government organizations that were partners in this project. Findings: Of the 3373 events categorized, 37% (n = 1154) were categorized by peer educators as being about hepatitis C, 39% (n = 1234) about safer injecting techniques and 24% (n = 760) about other issues. Peer educators described strategies they used particularly when their peers did not want to discuss hepatitis C or had other priorities. Conclusions: This project was successful in disseminating harm reduction information to the targeted community through the recruitment, training and support of peer educators. The results suggest the importance of broadening programme funding parameters to enable services to tailor their work to specific needs, while working towards the shared goal of hepatitis C prevention.