NYC’s Overdose Prevention Centers: Data from the First Year of Supervised Consumption Services

Report
by
McAteer, Jonathan et al

Release Date

2024

Geography

USA

Language of Resource

English

Full Text Available

No

Open Access / OK to Reproduce

No

Peer Reviewed

Yes

Objective

This report summarizes the first year of operations of two Overdose Prevention Centers (OPC) in NYC.

Findings/Key points

From November 30, 2021, to November 30, 2022, 2,841 individuals visited the two OPCs 48,533 times and staff intervened during 636 visits (1.3%) to prevent overdose-related injury and death. During this period, emergency medical services (EMS) were called only 23 times, and no overdose deaths occurred in the OPCs. Results suggest that the OPCs diverted up to 39,000 instances of public drug use and played a critical role in connecting participants to care, with 75% of participants accessing other harm-reduction, social, and medical services through OnPoint NYC.

Keywords

Harm reduction
Illegal drugs
Injecting drugs
Mortality
Overdose
SCS/OPS
Social benefits
Social services