The seven-year emergency: Unregulated drug poisoning events as a continuing public health threat in British Columbia

Summary: Drs. Slaunwhite and Palis will present data on drivers of the ongoing unregulated drug poisoning emergency. Conceptualizations of substance use, substance use disorder and risk of unregulated drug poisoning will be discussed. Analysis from the Provincial Overdose Cohort will be presented, to demonstrate populations for whom unregulated drug poisoning is elevated, including people with recent criminal legal system involvement. Interventions that can be introduced to reduce risk, including (prescribed) safer supply and peer-led interventions will be discussed. Presenter bios: Dr. Amanda Slaunwhite is an Assistant Professor (Partner) in the School of Population and Public Health at UBC and a Senior Scientist at the BC Centre for Disease Control. Dr. Slaunwhite holds a MSFHR Scholar Award, and is the co-Director of the Canadian Collaborative for Prison Health and Education (CCPHE). She has over a decade of experience working with administrative health data in BC, New Brunswick and the US on topics related to overdose, substance use and mental health. Dr. Slaunwhite actively partners with people with lived/living experience of substance use, overdose or incarceration as part of her research program, including the co-development and co-leadership of research projects. These projects include PREVAIL, in a partnership with Unlocking the Gates Non-Profit Society and Chee Mamuk, which provides peer support, cellular phones, and care and medicine bundles to people leaving correctional centres in BC who are at-risk of overdose mortality. Dr. Heather Palis is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, and BC Centre for Disease Control. Her postdoctoral research seeks to investigate recent interventions introduced in response to the overdose crisis in British Columbia (e.g. expanded opioid agonist treatment, pharmaceutical alternatives to the toxic drug supply), with a focus on the impact of these interventions on people who have been recently incarcerated. Her research uses administrative health and corrections records available in the Provincial Overdose Cohort held at the BC Centre for Disease Control, which offers the most comprehensive collection of records on fatal and non-fatal overdose events available in Canada. Heather’s postdoctoral research is supported by an MSFHR Research Trainee award, CIHR Fellowship, and UBC Institute of Mental Health Marshall Fellowship. Summary: Cumulative impacts refer to overlapping and persistent legacies of environmental change on ecosystems, communities and population health over time. While once primarily within the sole purview of impact assessment practitioners assessing major projects (e.g. dams, smelters, transmission lines), there is now growing recognition that cumulative environmental impacts of multiple land uses and climate change drive broader societal changes with implications for the health of individuals and communities. In light of this expanding discourse, new methodologies are required to quantify the totality of impact across social-ecological systems to support local and regional sustainability goals. Drawing from three regional case studies (Alberta Foothills, Northern Ontario, and British Columbia), this presentation presents an overview of a novel cumulative effects screening tool capable of merging environmental, socioeconomic and health data into a singular assessment architecture to quantify cumulative impacts across time and space. Opportunities and limitations associated with the tool’s utilization will be discussed, as well as future research opportunities to help better understand the relationship between cumulative environmental change and corresponding implications for communities and human health.

Mediasite Presenter

4/11/2023 7:00:00 PM