“Bed Bugs and Beyond”: An ethnographic analysis of North America's first women-only supervised drug consumption site

Hoots and harm reduction: a qualitative study identifying gaps in overdose prevention among women who smoke drugs

“…Presently, there are over a hundred SCS internationally [ 10 ], including stand-alone sites [ 11 , 12 ] and integrated models within healthcare facilities [ 13 , 14 ]. However, despite the fact that women who use drugs are disproportionately impacted by socio-structural violence compared to men [ 15 , 16 ], few SCS are women-only [ 17 , 18 ]. Further, while there are numerous SCS in Europe that provide supervised inhalation services [ 19 ], most SCS in North America do not provide this service [ 20 ], even though people who smoke drugs are also at risk of overdose and drug related-harms [ 21 , 22 ].…”

Women’s multiple uses of an overdose prevention technology to mitigate risks and harms within a supportive housing environment: a qualitative study

“…Lastly, we were prevented from conducting additional research on this intervention in other buildings when it was discovered that the button technology company was providing incentives (e.g., company shares) to residents, which raised ethical concerns for ongoing research based on competing interests potentially impacting study findings. However, we believe that the findings in this article are not compromised as drug use, overdose risk, and the violence experienced by women and sex workers is well-documented in our study setting [ 10 , 25 , 29 , 39 , 63 ] and our findings illustrate alternative ways that women adapted this technology for other emergencies rather than its intended purposes (i.e., pressing before consuming drugs). Further studies are needed that also include the perspectives of other stakeholders, such as building staff and management, to further characterize overdose response as well as any other technological limitations not described herein.…”

“…This has catalyzed public health agencies in implementing a variety of programs and services to address the harms associated with illicit substance use. These have included naloxone (i.e., an opioid antagonist used to counter the effects of opioid overdoses) training and distribution programs [ 1 , 7 ]; drug checking services where, via various technologies, people who use drugs (PWUD) can check the contents of their drugs for contaminants such as illicitly manufactured fentanyl [ 8 , 9 ]; and, in some jurisdictions, low-barrier supervised consumption sites (SCS), including women-only SCS [ 10 ], where people can use drugs under the supervision of trained staff who can respond to overdoses [ 11 , 12 ]. Despite these life-saving interventions, there remains a need for other targeted strategies to respond to this public health crisis, particularly for those disproportionately affected by overdose death, including those who use drugs alone in housing settings [ 13 ] as well as other vulnerable groups, such as Indigenous women [ 14 ].…”

“…These buildings consist of small individual bedrooms with shared washrooms and showers with conditions that have been described as crowded, unsafe, and unsanitary and negatively impacting the health of residents [ 17 , 39 – 41 ]. To address these social and structural inequities, a variety of health and social services also exist in this neighbourhood to provide safer environment interventions [ 42 ], some of which are targeted toward women who use drugs, including supportive housing models embedded within SROs and overdose prevention sites [ 10 , 39 ].…”

Enacting ‘more-than-human’ care: Clients’ and counsellors’ views on the multiple affordances of chatbots in alcohol and other drug counselling

“…This innovative approach to hepatitis C prevention treats the sexual partnership as the primary unit of intervention and aims to generate new affordances or possibilities for prevention. Socio-material approaches to affordances have since been productively applied to analyse a range of phenomena including the uses and effects of naloxone (an overdose reversal drug) ( Farrugia et al., 2019 ), supervised drug consumption sites ( Boyd et al., 2020 ) and, related to our own work, the relationship between online counselling platforms and therapeutic outcomes ( Dilkes-Frayne, Savic, Carter, Kokanović, & Lubman, 2019 ). The concept of affordances has also been mobilised in a study of the gender affordances of chatbots, specifically how the gender of a chatbot influences users’ engagement with it ( Brahnam & De Angeli, 2012 ).…”