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NIDA Awards Grant for Universities to Evaluate Overdose Prevention Centers
NYU Langone Health and Brown University’s School of Public Health have received a grant from National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to study the impact of the United States’ first publicly recognized overdose prevention centers (OPCs).
The total value of the grant award is $5 million, according to HealthDay. No funds from the grant will be used to support operation of the overdose prevention centers.
The study will evaluate 2 OPCs operating in New York City, and a third in Providence, Rhode Island, which is slated to open in 2024. Researchers are aiming to enroll 1100 total participants over the age of 18 who have already visited an OPC or other site that provides harm reduction services. The study will run from 2023 through 2027, with a multidisciplinary team conducting a multi-method evaluation of the OPCs, analyzing their impact at an individual and community level.
“This groundbreaking study will help us determine whether and how overdose prevention centers are an effective public health tool as part of a more compassionate, evidence-based response to this crisis in the US,” Brandon D.L. Marshall, who has studied overdose prevention centers in Canada and will lead the project in Rhode Island, said in a news release.
>> READ more comments on OPCs from Marshall, delivered during a recent Rx Summit panel.
The research project will be designed to accomplish the following objectives:
- Investigate whether enrolled study participants experience lower rates of fatal or nonfatal overdoses, drug-related health problems, and emergency department visits, as well as whether they are more likely to enter treatment for substance use disorders (SUDs) than those who use drugs but do not visit OPCs.
- Assess whether neighborhoods surrounding OPCs experience a greater change in overdose rates, public disorder (such as drug-related litter, arrests, and noise complaints), and economic activity in neighborhoods with OPCs vs. those without.
- Estimate OPCs’ operational costs and potential healthcare- and criminal justice system-related cost savings.
“We have an unprecedented opportunity to study the first publicly recognized overdose prevention centers in the country across 2 different states, as well as the impact on the communities in which they operate,” said Magdalena Cerdá, a professor and director of the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone, who will lead the project in New York.
“This research is urgently needed to inform policies that can best support public health, as more jurisdictions across the country consider implementing OPCs.”
The study will be part of the National Institutes of Health Harm Reduction Network, which launched in 2022 to test harm reduction settings in different community settings.
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