Wednesday, February 19, 2025 3:30pm to 5pm
About this Event
2540 23rd Street, San Francisco, CA
Assessing the Reach, Effectiveness, and Implementation of Harm Reduction Services in San Francisco: Results from Year 1 of an NIDA-Funded SF-Moon Study
Alex Kral, PhD, MS, and Cari Megerian, MPH
RTI International
Leslie Suen, MD, MAS
Division of General Internal Medicine
UCSF
Community-based organizations in San Francisco have been at the vanguard of implementing harm reduction services for the past 35 years. The dynamic nature of the unregulated drug market and the large increases in overdose mortality have required community-based organizations to be innovative and nimble, and the staff dedicated and steadfast in their work. Please join us next month for a presentation by Alex Kral and colleagues about an NIDA-funded project that seeks to assess the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance of harm reduction services in San Francisco. The study involves annual surveys of 800 people who use drugs and annual qualitative interviews of 20-30 staff who provide harm reduction services. This presentation will feature results from Year 1 of data collection (September 2023 to September 2024), including a geospatial analysis of crime data and overdose mortality; quantitative survey results for the reach of certain harm reduction services; and qualitative results related to adoption, implementation, and maintenance of harm reduction services.
Alex Kral (he/him) is an epidemiologist and Distinguished Fellow at RTI International and has been conducting research related to harm reduction services and drug policies for three decades.
Cari Megerian (she/her) is a public health researcher at RTI International with work that focuses on drug use behaviors, harm reduction practices, and evaluations of relevant policies and programs. She is currently the study director of two National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) funded studies in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Leslie Suen (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at UCSF Division of General Internal Medicine at SFGH, where she practices as a primary care and addiction medicine physician and conducts health services and policy research to improve health systems for people who drugs.
The UCSF Drug Use Research Group (DURG) is a city-wide seminar attended by faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and other Bay Area investigators centering on persons who use drugs. Started in 2005 after a friendly debate between an epidemiologist and anthropologist on the merits of quantitative versus qualitative research methods, the DURG monthly seminars provide a community platform for new and established investigators to present their work, explore research questions and methods, and to prepare for grant applications and the dissemination of findings in a supportive environment. The seminar has been successful in cultivating new collaborations and mentorship and in sustaining an interdisciplinary and interprofessional dialogue between those engaged in basic sciences, epidemiology, clinical, and public health research.
We have returned to in-person meetings. Our meetings are not recorded. Please contact us if you’d like to present your work or research ideas for friendly consultation and peer review.