Health worker perceptions of the impact of COVID‐19 on harm reduction services for people who inject drugs

Brener, Loren; Horwitz, Robyn; Rance, Jake; Caruana, Theresa; Bryant, Joanne

doi:10.1111/hsc.13782

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…This longitudinal cohort has the capacity to fill this gap because it captures a range of experiences, involves data collected prior to and during the pandemic, and associated public health responses. For example, this cohort will capture information about how reduced access to opportunities and the necessarily curtailed activities of opportunity providers, a consequence of both the pandemic as well as longstanding inadequacy in social sector funding [ 118 , 119 ], affects the experiences of job loss and adaptations surrounding income generation, including the potential return to prohibited and illegal sources of income. These data may be used to examine whether and how these economic shifts at the individual level are associated with changes to individual psychosocial resources and support, substance use behaviours, physical health, and mental health and well-being [ 11 , 15 , 52 , 53 , 54 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cohort Profile: The Assessing Economic Transitions (ASSET) Study—A Community-Based Mixed-Methods Study of Economic Engagement among Inner-City Residents

Richardson

Minh

McCormack

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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The Assessing Economic Transitions (ASSET) study was established to identify relationships between economic engagement, health and well-being in inner-city populations given that research in this area is currently underdeveloped. This paper describes the objectives, design, and characteristics of the ASSET study cohort, an open prospective cohort which aims to provide data on opportunities for addressing economic engagement in an inner-city drug-using population in Vancouver, Canada. Participants complete interviewer-administered surveys quarterly. A subset of participants complete nested semi-structured qualitative interviews semi-annually. Between April 2019 and May 2022, the study enrolled 257 participants ages 19 years or older (median age: 51; 40% Indigenous, 11.6% non-Indigenous people of colour; 39% cis-gender women, 3.9% transgender, genderqueer, or two-spirit) and 41 qualitative participants. At baseline, all participants reported past daily drug use, with 27% currently using opioids daily, and 20% currently using stimulants daily. In the three months prior to baseline, more participants undertook informal income generation (75%) than formal employment (50%). Employed participants largely had casual jobs (42%) or jobs with part-time/varied hours (35%). Nested qualitative studies will focus on how inner-city populations experience economic engagement. The resulting evidence will inform policy and programmatic initiatives to address socioeconomic drivers of health and well-being.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cohort Profile: The Assessing Economic Transitions (ASSET) Study—A Community-Based Mixed-Methods Study of Economic Engagement among Inner-City Residents

Richardson

Minh

McCormack

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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“…The qualitative interview data for this article was collected as part of a broader, mixed‐methods study, Assessing the impact of COVID on harm reduction services (Brener et al., 2021). In‐depth interviews ( n = 32) were conducted between October 2020 and February 2021 with people who inject drugs recruited from four harm reduction services in New South Wales: two inner‐metropolitan services; an outer‐metropolitan service; and two regional services.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Practising care in a pandemic: Accounting for everyday life during COVID‐19 among people who inject drugs

Rance

Bryant

Caruana

et al. 2023

Sociology Health & Illness

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From the outset of the COVID‐19 pandemic, fears have been raised worldwide regarding the unique challenges facing socially marginalised people such as those who inject drugs. This article draws on in‐depth interviews conducted during the first year of the pandemic with people who inject drugs living in urban and regional Australia. Perhaps the most surprising finding to emerge was the number of participants who reported minimal disruption to their everyday lives, even improved wellbeing in some instances. Attempting to make sense of this unanticipated finding, our analysis draws on the concept of ‘care’, not as a moral disposition or normative code but as something emergent, contingent and realised in practice. Working with Foucault’s ethics and recent feminist insights on the politics of care from the field of Science and Technology Studies, we explore how care was enacted in the everyday lives of our participants. We examine how participants’ daily routines became objects of care and changed practice in response to the pandemic; how their ongoing engagement with harm reduction services afforded not only clinical support but vital forms of social and affective connection; and how for some, care was realised through an ethos and practice of constrained sociality and solitude.

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“…While existing research offers valuable insights into harm reduction service access during the pandemic, these studies largely focus on the perspectives of service providers (19–21). Furthermore, the limited data reported directly by PWID are currently confined to single regions of the country, such as New York (5), and further analysis is necessary to determine if the conclusions are consistent in other regions as COVID-19 policies varied greatly by location.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptions of access to harm reduction services during the COVID-19 pandemic among people who inject drugs in Chicago

Kristensen,

Boodram,

Avila

et al. 2023

Preprint

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BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic amplified the risk environment for people who inject drugs (PWID), making continued access to harm reduction services imperative. Research has shown that some harm reduction service providers were able to continue to provide services throughout the pandemic. Most of these studies, however, focused on staff perspectives, not those of PWID. Our study examines changes in perceptions of access to harm reduction services among PWID participating in a longitudinal study conducted through the University of Illinois-Chicago’s Community Outreach Intervention Project field sites during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsResponses to a COVID-19 module added to the parent study survey that assessed the impact of COVID-19 on PWID participating in an ongoing longitudinal study were analyzed to understand how study participants’ self-reported access to harm reduction services changed throughout the pandemic. Mixed effects logistic regression was used to examine difficulty in syringe access as an outcome of COVID-19 phase.ResultsMost participants reported that access to syringes and naloxone remained the same as prior to the pandemic. Participants had significantly higher odds of reporting difficulty in accessing syringes earlier in the pandemic.ConclusionsThe lack of perceived changes in harm reduction access by PWID and the decrease in those reporting difficulty accessing syringes as the pandemic progressed suggests the efficacy of adaptations to harm reduction service provision (e.g., window and mobile service) during the pandemic. Further research is needed to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic may have impacted PWIDs’ engagement with harm reduction services.

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Health worker perceptions of the impact of COVID‐19 on harm reduction services for people who inject drugs

Cited by 10 publications

References 39 publications

Cohort Profile: The Assessing Economic Transitions (ASSET) Study—A Community-Based Mixed-Methods Study of Economic Engagement among Inner-City Residents

Cohort Profile: The Assessing Economic Transitions (ASSET) Study—A Community-Based Mixed-Methods Study of Economic Engagement among Inner-City Residents

Practising care in a pandemic: Accounting for everyday life during COVID‐19 among people who inject drugs

Perceptions of access to harm reduction services during the COVID-19 pandemic among people who inject drugs in Chicago

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