Comparing harm reduction and overdose response services between community-based and public health department syringe service programmes using a national cross-sectional survey

Distributing Safer Smoking Pipes Increases Engagement with Harm Reduction Services in the United States: Findings from the National Survey of Syringe Services Programs

“…In our sample, SSPs classified as CBOs distributed pipes for smoking more often than SSPs classified as DPHs or HCOs. This finding aligns with recent research which found CBO SSPs provided a greater number of syringes, naloxone doses, fentanyl test strips, and buprenorphine compared to DPH SSPs (Ray et al, 2024). Given the federal ban on purchasing pipes, DPH SSPs may experience greater legal and financial obstacles for pipe distribution compared to CBO SSPs.…”

“…The federal ban and political opposition have forced SSPs that are distributing safer smoking supplies to patch together different funding sources—individual donations, private funding, state grants, etc.—to support implementation. SSP funding levels already do not meet minimum benchmarks, and insufficient funding threatens the implementation of evidence-based interventions (Akiba et al, 2024; Facente et al, 2024; Ray et al, 2024). Our findings highlight how critical it is to financially support SSPs to adapt to the evolving context and implement safer drug use supplies.…”

“…For naloxone doses, respondents were asked "How many naloxone doses did your syringe services program distribute in 2022?" Informed by findings from prior research (Lambdin et al, 2020;Facente et al, 2024;Ray et al, 2024), we selected the following covariates a priori to include in our models: annual budget of the SSP, organizational type, urbanicity, opioid overdose mortality rates, and U.S. regional Census division. Annual SSP program budget was classified into the following categories: <$50,000, $50,000 -$149,999, $150,000 -$499,999, $500,000 -$999,999, and over $1,000,000.…”