Techniques are described for reducing an injection type of program disturb in a memory device during the pre-charge phase of a program loop. In one approach, a pre-charge voltage on the selected word line and drain side word lines is adjusted based on a risk of the injection type of program disturb. Risk factors such as temperature, WLn position, Vpgm and the selected sub-block, can be used to set the pre-charge voltage to be lower when the risk is higher. In another approach, the pre-charge voltage on the source side word lines is adjusted to reduce a channel gradient and/or the amount of time in which the injection type of program disturb occurs.