Engaging families and parent advocates in research on substance use and drug policy reform: Guiding principles from a Canadian community-academic partnership

Canada is in the midst of a public health emergency in drug poisoning (overdose) deaths. In this context parents, and especially mothers, of those who have died from drug poisoning have mobilised to advocate for urgent responses and drug policy reforms. To document this emerging women-led advocacy, we initiated a community-academic research partnership with three parent groups representing families in Canada bereaved by drug-related deaths. In this commentary, we describe four guiding principles we developed during the course of this project, to ensure an ethical and equitable approach to conducting our research partnership. In particular, we emphasise how we navigated parents' roles as vocal advocates for addressing drug stigma and expanding harm reduction while actively working to avoid eclipsing the need to centre the perspectives of people who use drugs. Meaningful and collaborative partnerships between academics and community groups may facilitate greater understandings of how families and communities can be allied in drug policy reforms urgently needed to prevent drug poisoning deaths.