The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #72668

Peter J Davidson, BA¹, Rachel McLean, BS², Alice A. Gleghorn, PhD³, and Andrew R Moss, PhD¹. (1) Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, UCSF Box 1306, San Francisco, CA 94143-1306, 415 476-9296 x334, pjd@itsa.ucsf.edu, (2) DOPE Project, C/- P Davidson, UCSF Box 1306, San Francisco, CA 94143-1306, (3) Community of Substance Abuse Services (CSAS), 1380 Howard Street, 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103

Issue: Heroin-related overdose is the single largest cause of accidental death in San Francisco. Prior attempts to reduce overdose death rates in San Francisco have been hampered by an unclear understanding of the demographics, geographic locales and social contexts of these deaths.

Setting: A harm-reduction oriented heroin overdose project operating in low-income residential hotels, homeless shelters, jails and drug treatment facilities San Francisco, California, USA.

Project: The DOPE (drug overdose prevention project) project used research conducted by the University of California, San Francisco department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics on non-toxicological data in medical examiner's records to identify high-risk target populations and to develop an intervention that acknowledged the social contexts in which overdose deaths were occurring.

Outcomes and lessons: The DOPE project successfully identified heroin-using populations who were at risk for fatal (as opposed to non-fatal) heroin-related overdose; developed and implemented subculturally appropriate interventions for identified populations which acknowledged the social contexts in which they live and used heroin; developed and implemented culturally appropriate interventions for those identified as being involved in the lives of identified at-risk populations; and documented outcomes of those interventions on overdose rates. We describe the use of the research data to meet these aims and the ultimate outcomes of the project.

Learning Objectives:

• At the conclusion of this session, the participant will be able to describe the process of integrating medical examiner or coroner data into the design of heroin-related overdose death interventions. More boradly, the participant will be able to identify three benefits of close integration between research and intervention design; and will be able to articulate issues that need to be considered when designing research intended to inform intevention design.

Keywords: Peer Education, Injection Drug Users

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.