Hepatitis C & STI Surveillance & Epidemiology

Reports on Street Youth in Canada

To obtain a printed copy, please contact:
the Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Centre

The following reports present results of data collected from street youth in seven cities across Canada from 1999-2003:

• Street Youth in Canada - Findings from Enhanced Surveillance of Canadian Street Youth, 1999-2003 March 2006 (May 31 2006)
• Sexually Transmitted Infections Findings from Enhanced Surveillance of Canadian Street Youth, 1999-2003 (June 2006)
• Knowledge Translation and Exchange
  • Ottawa Public Health has released a report entitled Enhanced Street Youth Surveillance in Ottawa 2011 (PDF document). This report highlights findings from E-SYS Cycle 6 in Ottawa (2009). Ottawa Public Health also engaged street-involved youth to develop digital clips that tell youth's stories. In these stories, street-involved youth share their experiences regarding drug use and heavy alcohol use.
  • Saskatoon Health Region has released fact sheets that highlight the findings from E-SYS Cycle 6 (2009) in Saskatoon. The fact sheets cover sexual health, drug use, education, justice, access to services, and prevalence of bloodborne infections such as HIV, hepatitis B and C.
  • Alberta Health Services has released the Enhanced Street Youth Surveillance: Edmonton Site Results 1999-2010.
  • As part of E-SYS Cycle 6 (2009-2011), the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control (Vancouver) engaged street-involved youth to develop digital clips that tell their stories while using some of the E-SYS data collected in Vancouver. These stories can be accessed at STI/HIV Research Program - Street Youth Video Project.
• Articles:
  • Huang L, Gilbert M-L, Rossi MF, Haase D, Wright J, Sicard N, Beaudoin C, Taylor D, Gratrix J, Belzak L, Wong T, Jayaraman G. Trends in Vaccine-induced Immunity to Hepatitis B among Canadian Street-involved Youth. Journal of Urban Health. March 2010;87(2):337-348.
• Epi Updates :
  • Street Youth in Canada: How Do Injection Drug Users Differ from Their Non-Injecting Peers?
  • Hepatitis C Virus Infection in Canadian Street Youth: The Role of Injection Drug Use
  • Filling the Gaps in Our Knowledge of Youth Health: Enhanced Surveillance of Canadian Street Youth (E-SYS)
  • Who Are Canada's Street Youth? A Socio-demographic Snapshot from E-SYS
  • Chlamydia: A Hidden Epidemic in Canadian Street Youth
  • Sexual Behaviours of Canadian Street Youth: How Risky Are They?

The main report contains an overview of available data and the sub-reports address specific issues relating to the street youth population and contain more complex and in-depth analyses on STIs, substance use and associated sexual risk behaviours as well as hepatitis C and injection drug use.

Findings from the analyses show that street youth leave home for various reasons, the most common being conflict with parents or caregivers. Prevalence rates of STIs and blood-borne infections were higher than in general population youth and examination of subgroups within the street youth sample, such as injection drug users, reveals high prevalence of hepatitis C. High-risk sexual behaviours such as infrequent condom use, and high numbers of sexual partners were also common within this population, as were high levels of substance use.

Our aim is that these findings will be used to provide improved and increased health and social services interventions for street youth in Canada.