Harm Reduction Services for People Who Use Drugs: Exploring Data Collection, Evidence Gaps, and Research Needs

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Given the public health emergency posed by drug overdoses, there have been calls for a comprehensive approach to drug policy that would include focusing on reducing harm for people who use drugs. To explore data collection efforts, evidence gaps, and research needs for harm reduction, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a virtual workshop on January 30-31, 2024, sponsored by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Executive Office of the President. The workshop focused on harm reduction strategies and services that aim to prevent overdose and infectious disease transmission; enhance the health, safety, and well-being of people who use drugs; and offer low-threshold options for accessing substance use disorder treatment. This Proceedings of a Workshop-in Brief summarizes the presentations and discussions that occurred at the workshop.

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15 pages · 8.5 x 11 ·
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-71730-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17226/27650

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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Harm Reduction Services for People Who Use Drugs: Exploring Data Collection, Evidence Gaps, and Research: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

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Alan I. Leshner

Alan Leshner, PhD is Chief Executive Officer, Emeritus of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and former Executive Publisher of the journal Science and the Science family of journals. He served as permanent CEO from December 2001 through February 2015, and then as Interim CEO from July-December 2019. Before joining AAAS, Dr. Leshner was Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health. He also served as Deputy Director and Acting Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, and in several roles at the National Science Foundation. Before joining the government, Dr. Leshner was Professor of Psychology at Bucknell University, where he taught and conducted research on the relationship between hormones and behavior. Dr. Leshner is an elected fellow of AAAS, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Public Administration, and many others. He is a member and served as Vice Chair of the governing Council of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. He served two terms on the National Science Board, appointed first by President Bush and then reappointed by President Obama. Dr.Leshner received Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in physiological psychology from Rutgers University and ancA.B. in psychology from Franklin and Marshall College. Dr. Leshner has received many honors and awards, including the Walsh McDermott Medal from the National Academy of Medicine and seven honorary Doctor of Science degrees.

Magdalena Cerdá

Magdalena Cerdá, DrPH is a Professor and Director of the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy, at the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health. Her work integrates approaches from social and psychiatric epidemiology to examine how social contexts and drug and health policies shape substance use and violent behavior. Current funded research focuses on the impact that state cannabis and overdose prevention policies, as well as local harm reduction policies and harm reduction programs, have on overdose and other drug-related harms. Her research also examines the use of machine learning and simulation models to forecast overdose hotspots and to estimate the potential impact of novel interventions to reduce overdose. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine Action Collaborative on Combatting Substance Use and Opioid Crises, she is President of the Interdisciplinary Association of Population Health Sciences, and Senior Editor of the International Journal of Drug Policy. Dr. Cerdá obtained her doctorate from the Harvard University School of Public Health in 2006 and is a former Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar.

Chinazo Cunningham

Chinazo Cunningham, MD is Commissioner of the New York Office of Addiction Services and Supports, where she oversees one of the nation’s largest systems of substance use and addiction services. She is a physician trained in primary care internal medicine and addiction medicine and has spent over 20 years providing care, developing programs, and conducting research with people who use drugs. For decades, she has also collaborated with community-based harm reduction organizations. Her research has focused on improving access to care, utilization of health care services, and health outcomes. Dr. Cunningham has authored over 150 peer-reviewed manuscripts and has been the principal investigator on numerous federally funded grants, including grants funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA). She has been recognized by local, state, and national awards for her mentorship, leadership in the field of addiction, and body of research. Dr. Cunningham has also served on and chaired numerous national advisory committees, guideline committees, and grant-review study sections, including committees sponsored by the National Academy of Medicine, NIH, CDC, and American Society of Addiction Medicine.

Chin Hwa Dahlem

Chin Hwa (Gina) Dahlem, PhD, MSN is a Clinical Associate Professor at University of Michigan School of Nursing and a nurse practitioner at Packard Health serving people experiencing homelessness. Dr. Dahlem has been delivering overdose prevention education and implementing naloxone distribution programs for communities, first responders, and healthcare providers since 2013. Her expertise is in community- engaged research, implementing, and evaluating innovative harm reduction models of care to reduce the burden associated with opioid epidemic. She is fellow of American Association of Nurse Practitioners, co- inventor of an adolescent risk assessment screening tool, RAAPS, and is the recipient of 2023 UMSN Alumni Award for Excellence in Nursing Research and Scholarship.

Nabarun Dasgupta

Nabarun Dasgupta, PhD is a scientist-activist at the University of North Carolina (UNC) with 2 decades of experience in harm reduction, focused on overdose epidemiology and prevention. His passion is telling true stories about health, with numbers. His multidisciplinary approach draws on large database analytics, qualitative field studies, chemistry laboratory drug checking, randomized message trials, and community-based interventions. At UNC he works at the Opioid Data Lab, a multi-university team of scientists exploring difficult epidemiology methods questions in overdose. His research is primarily funded by the US Food and Drug Administration. He is a co-founder of Remedy Alliance For The People (remedyallianceftp.org), a groundbreaking non-profit distributor that makes bulk naloxone purchases easy. He also co-founded the UNC Street Drug Analysis Lab (https://streetsafe.supply), which provides mail-in drug checking services to 140+ programs in 30+ states. In 2023 Dr. Dasgupta was named to TIME 100 Next list of emerging global leaders. He holds degrees from Princeton University, Yale University, and UNC.

Corey Davis

Corey Davis, JD, MSPH serves as Director of the Network's Harm Reduction Legal Project. Corey was previously a Senior Attorney at the National Health Law Program (NHeLP), where he helped to advance access to quality health care for low-income and underserved individuals. Before joining NHeLP Corey served as Employment Rights Attorney at Equality Advocates Pennsylvania, where he represented lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals before administrative commissions and in state and federal courts. He previously oversaw a street-based legal clinic sited at Philadelphia's syringe exchange program. Corey has served as chair of a county board of health, chair of the board of the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, and vice-chair of the North Carolina Harm Public Health Foundation, among other positions. He is a recipient of the International AIDS Society's Young Investigator Award and has published extensively in the lay and academic press. Corey received his B.S. from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, his M.S.P.H. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his J.D. from Temple University. Corey is barred in Pennsylvania and New Jersey as well as various federal courts

Ruchi Fitzgerald

Ruchi Fitzgerald, MD, FAAFP is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Rush University. She is also the Associate Program Director of the Rush University Addiction Medicine Fellowship. She is the Service Chief of Inpatient Addiction Medicine at PCC Community Wellness Center, a federally qualified health center system that serves the West Side of Chicago. Dr. Fitzgerald is a National Academy of Medicine James C. Puffer/American Board of Family Medicine fellow. Dr. Fitzgerald’s work has focused on promoting cross-sector collaboration to improve care for persons affected by substance use disorders, with an emphasis in the perinatal/child health arena. Her scholarly work has focused on addressing stigma, building capacity in primary care for treating opioid use disorder in special populations, and implementing evidence-based substance use disorder curricula in the next generation of clinicians. Dr. Fitzgerald received her MD from the University of Michigan Medical School and completed her Family Medicine training with the Montana Family Medicine Residency and her Addiction Medicine fellowship with Rush University.

Tracie Gardner

Tracie M. Gardner, BA is Senior Vice President of Policy Advocacy, Ms. Gardner oversees LAC’s New York, Federal and state-based policy advocacy work on the Center’s core issues related to substance use, harm reduction and criminal legal system reform. Ms. Gardner has worked more than 30 years in the health and social services policy arena as a policy advocate, trainer and lobbyist. From 2015-2017, Ms. Gardner served as the Assistant Secretary of Mental Hygiene for New York State, where she oversaw the state’s addiction, mental health and developmental disabilities agencies. Ms. Gardner is a nationally recognized expert on health and communities of color especially around substance use and the impact of the War on Drugs and incarceration on Black communities in this country. She is a highly requested speaker on these issues and has been extensively quoted in the media and has contributed to various research and journal articles on institutional racism’s impact on the health and criminal legal system. She is the primary author of LAC’s 2018 report: Health and Justice: Bridging the Gap, which details New York’s efforts to enroll incarcerated individuals in Medicaid and connect them to community-based care upon release and helped author LAC’s 2022 Blueprint for Transforming Criminal Legal System Outcomes in NYC. In 2021, the NYC Public Advocate appointed Ms. Gardner to the NYC Community Reinvestment and Closure of Rikers Island Commission, heading the Health Committee. In 2022, Ms. Gardner was a member of the Planning Committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshop and report: Methadone Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder: Improving Access Through Regulatory and Legal Change: Proceedings of a Workshop This year she was awarded the Faces & Voices of Recovery 2023 Excellence in Equity and Justice Award because of her national leadership and focus on issues related to substance use, harm reduction, and criminal legal system reform.

Helena Hansen

Helena Hansen, MD, Ph.D. psychiatrist-anthropologist, is Professor and Interim Chair of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine and Interim Director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. She is the author of over 100 articles in leading clinical and social science journals, and of three books: Addicted to Christ: Remaking Men in Puerto Rican Pentecostal Drug Ministries; Structural Competency in Medicine and Mental Health: A Case-Based Approach to Treating the Social Determinants of Health (with Jonathan Metzl); and Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Heroin in America (with Jules Netherland and David Herzberg). She has received numerous awards, including an honorary doctorate from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, and election to the National Academy of Medicine.

Jeffrey Hom

Jeffrey Kiyoshi Hom, MD, MPH, MSHP is the director of Population Behavioral Health in the San Francisco Department of Public Health, which uses population-level and equity-driven approaches to advance the wellbeing of San Franciscans. A board-certified internist, Jeff oversees the department’s Office of Overdose Prevention, focusing on reducing overdoses and the harms associated with substance use. Jeff most recently served as the medical director of the Division of Substance Use Prevention and Harm Reduction in the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, where he helped lead the City’s response to addiction and overdose. He was also a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania and the Jefferson College of Population Health, where he taught graduate courses on substance use as a public health issue. For his efforts Jeff has been a Zuckerman Fellow at Harvard's Center for Public Leadership, a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, a TEDx speaker, and awarded the Common Good Award by Bowdoin College’s Board of Trustees. Jeff received his MD from Harvard Medical School and his MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed his internal medicine residency at UCSF and fellowship as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where he obtained his Master of Science in Health Policy Research. He is currently pursuing a Doctor of Public Health as a Bloomberg Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Kevin Larsen

Kevin L Larsen, MD is an internist and medical informaticist who started his career at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis where he had a variety of executive and clinical leadership roles. He has worked in academia, hospital and government settings, focusing on innovation through data and analytics, research, policy and developing/implementing novel programs at scale. He joined Optum from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where most recently he has been Senior Health IT Advisor at the office of the Chief Technology Officer. There he was the executive lead for the 10-billion- dollar Indian Health Service Electronic Health Record Modernization Project. Kevin established and led the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) strategic planning and transformation team under Dr. Patrick Conway and Andy Slavitt. In that role he was on the CMS executive team where he convened stakeholders across CMS and its partners to develop strategies and execute enterprise program improvements. He consulted on health IT policy, standards and project execution for numerous Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) models, such as Million Hearts, Oncology Bundle, State Innovation Models and Accountable Health Communities. He started his Washington D.C. career at Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) as the Medical Director of Meaningful Use where he led ONCs work on quality policy, measurement and improvement, including clinical decision support and social determinants of health. Earlier, Kevin was CMIO and Associate Medical Director of Hennepin Health System. He is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota. He was also the founder and leader of the Center for Urban Health, a health equity focused health services research institute.

Stephen Murray

Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP, is an overdose researcher, Harm Reduction Program Manager, and the Director of the Massachusetts Overdose Prevention Helpline at Boston Medical Center. In 2021, he retired as a Lieutenant at a regional ambulance service in Western Massachusetts, and had served as a first responder since 2013, having worked both as a firefighter and paramedic. He regularly shares for a national audience about his lived experience as a person who used drugs and overdose survivor. Stephen provides expert technical assistance around the topics of overdose prevention, emergency medical services and harm reduction to a variety of organizations and government bodies across the country at the local, state and national level. He has guest lectured at Northeastern University, UMASS Medical School, Bennington College, Boston University, Temple University and Ohio State University, and has had work published in the American Journal of Public Health and Health Promotion Practice. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. In September 2023, he was featured in Episode 809 ("The Call") on This American Life. He has a master’s degree in public health from Boston University and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Miami.

Glyceria (Ria) Tsinas

Glyceria (Ria)Tsinas the Director of Development for the Academy of Perinatal Harm Reduction. From 2016-2018, Ria was co-chair of the National Perinatal Association’s family toolkit workgroup and co-chair of the 2018 conference planning committee. Ria volunteered in direct service syringe access for the People’s Harm Reduction Alliance from 2010-2015, and served on the Board of directors from 2017-2019. She has worked in both the public and private sectors of syringe access - most notably as an education specialist for King County Public Health in Seattle, WA. Ria also served as a residential counselor at Downtown Emergency Service Center, as well as the YWCA Angeline’s drop in and winter response shelter in Seattle. Ria’s work has been highlighted in publications such as Undark, Filter, and the Daily (University of Washington student newsletter). She is a peer reviewer for the American Journal of Public Health. Ria works tirelessly to push back on antiquated narratives about drug use and parenting. Her dynamic and unique blend of equal parts harm reduction professional and drug war survivor posit her to create grounded yet innovative solutions to complex problems.

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Harm Reduction Services for People Who Use Drugs: Exploring Data Collection, Evidence Gaps, and Research Needs - A Workshop

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Harm Reduction Services for People Who Use Drugs: Exploring Data Collection, Evidence Gaps, and Research Needs - A Workshop

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Featured publication

Harm Reduction Services for People Who Use Drugs: Exploring Data Collection, Evidence Gaps, and Research: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief

Description

Collaborators

Committee

Sponsors

Staff

Parent projects

Board on Health Sciences Policy

Major units and sub-units

Contact

Contact us

Provide feedback

Request materials

More like this

Prevention of and Response to Sexual Harassment in Higher Education: Tools for Department Chairs and Principal Investigators: A Workshop

The Mississippi River Flood Centennial Serious Game

Workshop on Media Literacy Education

Extreme Weather Events and Insurance Webinar Series

Modernizing Mathematics Education for Grades 9-14

Prevention of and Response to Sexual Harassment in Higher Education: Tools for Department Chairs and Principal Investigators: A Workshop

State of Human H5N1 Therapeutics: A Rapid Expert Consultation

Biomedical and Health Sciences Program Area

Neurodegenerative Outcomes and Selected Military Exposures