Using data from national population-based U.S. surveys, we estimated that persons who ever injected drugs comprised 2.6% (CI: 1.8%–3.3%) of the U.S. population. This represents approximately 6,612,488 million PWID (range: 4,583,188–8,641,788) aged 13 years or older in 2011. Although PWID comprise 3% or less of the U.S. population, they account for 22% of all persons living with HIV infection [2]. Our estimates also quantified the recognized disparity of HIV disease rates among black and Hispanic/Latino male and female PWID when compared with white male and female PWID.
