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The criminalization of sex work and drug use creates unequal power dynamics easily exploited by police. Women who exchange sex (WES) in settings around the globe have reported coerced sex and sexual assault by...
Although fentanyl test strips (FTS) can accurately determine the presence of fentanyl in unregulated substances, access to FTS remains limited. This study aimed to examine North Carolina community pharmacists’...
Gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM) are overrepresented in cohorts of people who inject drugs. GBMSM’s substance use is usually explored in the context of its contribution to sexual risk....
Drug use is a critical behavioral disorder or a delinquency behavior (in the judiciary system's words) that comes with a burden at multiple levels: individual, community, public, and global. These social struc...
Stigma and other barriers limit harm reduction practice integration by clinicians within acute psychiatric settings. The objective of our study was to explore mental health clinician attitudes towards substanc...
The original article was published in Harm Reduction Journal 2022 19:15
Black individuals in the USA face disproportionate increases in rates of fatal opioid overdose despite federal efforts to mitigate the opioid crisis. The aim of this study was to examine what drives increases ...
Adherence to daily oral antiretroviral therapy (ART) and regular clinic appointments can be challenging for individuals who experience adverse social determinants of health. Long-acting injectable ART administ...
Drug alerts designed for health and community workforces have potential to avert acute harms associated with unpredictable illicit drug markets, by preparing workers to respond to unusual drug-related events, ...
Heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) is effective for individuals with severe opioid use disorder (OUD) who do not respond sufficiently to other opioid agonist treatments. It is mostly offered with injectable diace...
Harm Reduction (HR) policies for People Who Use Drugs (PWUD) have a significant positive impact on their health. Such approaches limit the spread of infections and reduce opioid overdose mortality. These polic...
Needle Exchange Programme (NEP) mobile outreach services in Aotearoa New Zealand distribute injecting equipment to people who inject drugs (PWID) living in remote regions. In disasters, continued access to suc...
Australian needle and syringe distribution occurs via a mix of modalities, including syringe dispensing machines (SDMs). SDMs are electronic vending machines providing (often) 24-h access to needles/syringes a...
Illicit drug overdoses have reached unprecedented levels, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Responses are needed that address the increasingly potent and unpredictable drug supply with better reach to a wi...
Fentanyl adulteration of illicit drugs is a major driver of opioid-involved overdose in the USA. Fentanyl test strips are increasingly used by people who use drugs to check for fentanyl. However, little is kno...
The opioid epidemic has had a devastating impact on youth from American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) Tribes and Villages, which also experience disparate suicide rates. The use of publicly available social...
The measures implemented to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus disrupted the provision of substance misuse treatment and support. However, little is known about the impact of this disruption on individua...
Female sex workers (FSW) have been disproportionately impacted by the Covid-19 crisis. Data show increases of police violence toward key populations (KP), likely a consequence of their role in enforcing health...
Cannabis is used by millions of people for both medical and recreational purposes, and this use is even greater in jurisdictions where it is legalized, such as Canada. Online cannabis vendors have gained popul...
The original article was published in Harm Reduction Journal 2022 19:129
A growing body of research has focused on contextual factors that shape health and well-being of people who use drugs (PWUD). However, most of this research focuses on large cities and less is known about the ...
Avoiding use of opioids while alone reduces overdose fatality risk; however, drug use-related stigma may be a barrier to consistently using opioids in the presence of others.
In New Zealand, Pacific people continue to be more at risk of gambling harm than the general population, despite increasing public health efforts and treatment service provisions introduced to address this soc...
A recent surge in HIV outbreaks, driven by the opioid and stimulant use crises, has destabilized our progress toward targets set forth by Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America for the high-priority communit...
People who inject drugs (PWID) are at risk for HIV and opioid overdose. We piloted PARTNER UP, a telemedicine-based program to provide PWID with access to both oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prev...
This review describes the evolution of smoking prevalence in countries with relatively high adoption of alternative nicotine products such as e-cigarettes, heated tobacco, and snus compared to neighboring coun...
Overdose-associated deaths and morbidity related to substance use is a global public health emergency with devastating social and economic costs. Complications of substance use are most pronounced among people...
While natural disasters like hurricanes are increasingly common, their long-term effects on people who inject drugs are not well understood. Although brief in duration, natural disasters can radically transfor...
The Correction to this article has been published in Harm Reduction Journal 2022 19:137
Chronic health conditions associated with long-term drug use may pose additional risks to people who use drugs (PWUD) when coupled with COVID-19 infection. Despite this, PWUD, especially those living in rural ...
This paper explores the feasibility of delivering a music festival-based drug checking service in Australia, evaluating service design and stakeholder acceptability.
The overdose crisis in Canada has worsened since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although this trend is thought to be driven in part by closures or reduced capacity of supervised consumption services (...
Settings throughout Canada and the USA continue to experience crises of overdose death due to the toxic unregulated drug supply. Injecting drugs alone limits the potential for intervention and has accounted fo...
Hospital-based harm reduction services are needed to reduce drug-related harms, facilitate retention in care, and increase medical treatment adherence for people who use drugs. Philanthropic donor support play...
The original article was published in Harm Reduction Journal 2022 19:113
To counteract the spread of new psychoactive substances (NPS) and to prevent the emergence of novel substances, specifically designed as a response to the legal control of individual substances, a new law was ...
The incidence of HIV among persons who inject drugs (PWID) in the USA has been increasing since 2014, signaling the need to identify effective ways to engage PWID in HIV prevention services, namely pre-exposur...
Preventing HIV transmission among people who inject drugs (PWID) is a key element of the US Ending the HIV Epidemic strategy and includes both pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and medications for opioid use dis...
Opioid agonist therapy (OAT) is associated with reduced injection, reduced HCV transmission, and more opportunities to initiate hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment in people who use drugs (PWUD). We aimed to stu...
Harm reduction services and professionals have had to reorganise and adapt to COVID-19 prevention measures while still ensuring health and social services for people who use drugs (PUD).
Opioid overdose epidemic is hitting record highs worldwide, accounting for 76% of mortality related to substance use. Take-home naloxone (THN) strategies are being implemented in many developed countries that ...
Narrow or non-existent Good Samaritan Law protections and harsh drug selling statutes in the USA have been shown to deter bystanders from seeking medical assistance for overdoses. Additionally, little is known...
Transactional sex is an important driver of HIV risk among people who use drugs in the USA, but there is a dearth of research characterizing men’s selling and trading of sex in the context of opioid use. To id...
Opioid overdose response training (OORT) and the need for its rapid expansion have become more significant as the opioid epidemic continues to be a health crisis in the USA. Limitation of funding and stigmatiz...
Given the ongoing opioid crisis, novel interventions to treat severe opioid use disorder (OUD) are urgently needed. Injectable opioid agonist therapy (iOAT) with diacetylmorphine or hydromorphone is effective ...
The Correction to this article has been published in Harm Reduction Journal 2022 19:123
In August 2019, an outbreak of “e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury” (EVALI) prompted many states and health organizations to warn against the use of electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes...
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Harm Reduction grant program expanded access to several harm reduction strategies to mitigate opioid overdose fatalities, including expa...
Opioid-related overdose death is a public health epidemic in much of the USA, yet little is known about how people who use opioids (PWUO) experience overdose deaths in their social networks. We explore these e...
Existing research in urban areas has documented a multitude of ways in which law enforcement may affect risks for bloodborne infectious disease acquisition among people who inject drugs (PWID), such as via syr...
Injection drug use and needle sharing remains a public health concern due to the associated risk of HIV, HCV and skin and soft tissue infections. Studies have shown gendered differences in the risk environment...
Access to sterile needles, syringes and methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) is critical to reduce the prevalence of bloodborne virus infections among people who inject drugs (PWID). We aimed to explore the exp...
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