Original research
by
Wares, Joanna R. et al
Release Date
2021
Geography
USA
Language of Resource
English
Full Text Available
Yes
Open Access / OK to Reproduce
Yes
Peer Reviewed
Yes
Objective
As urban centers in the USA are tackling legal hurdles and community skepticism around the introduction and location of these sites, it becomes increasingly important to assess the magnitude of the effect that these services might have on public health.
Findings/Key points
Our results predict that for every 30 stations in the overdose prevention site, 6 per year of these would have resulted in fatalities if they had occurred outside of the overdose prevention site. Additionally, we estimate that fatalities will decrease further when referrals from the OPS to treatment are considered.
Design/methods
We developed a mathematical model to describe the movement of people who used opioids to an overdose prevention site in order to understand the impact that the facility would have on overdoses, fatalities, and user education and treatment/recovery. The discrete-time, stochastic model is able to describe a range of user behaviors, including the effects from how far they need to travel to the site.
Keywords
Overdose
Mortality
Evidence base
Equity
Outcomes
Illegal drugs
SCS/OPS
