ArticleHarm reduction journal2023
Impact of safer supply programs on injection practices: client and provider experiences in Ontario, Canada.
Article in Harm reduction journal, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- Safer opioid supply clients' values and preferences: a systematic review and thematic synthesis of qualitative research.BMJ mental health · 2025Pooled it
- Psychosocial factors associated with overdose subsequent to Illicit Drug use: a systematic review and narrative synthesis.Harm reduction journal · 2024Pooled it
- "Anybody who Looks at This Program and Doesn't See the Positive Side from it Doesn't Fully Understand": Participant Perspectives on an Injectable Opioid Agonist Treatment Program in New Brunswick, Canada.Contemporary drug problems · 2026Article
- Prescribed pharmaceutical alternatives initiative coinciding with reductions in unregulated street opioid use among young people who use drugs: An interrupted time series analysis.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Article
- "Safer supply is the thing that changes everything": the role of prescribed safer supply in rebuilding trust following experiences of medical abandonment.BMC public health · 2026Article
- A continuum of disconnection: the impacts of safer supply program closures on continuity of care, transition, and total loss of service access.Harm reduction journal · 2026Article
- Article
- Harm reduction vending machines as safer supply-supporting infrastructure.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- A sea of need: provider accounts of strategies used to manage admission demands to safer opioid supply programs in Ontario.Harm reduction journal · 2025Article
- "From an HCV and HIV point of view, it's been remarkable": A qualitative study about using prescribed safer supply to support people who use drugs along the HIV and HCV prevention and treatment cascades in Ontario, Canada.Journal of the International AIDS Society · 2025Article
- Adapting the alcohol and alcohol problems perception questionnaire and the drug and drug problems perception questionnaire: A psychometric analysis of a person-centred approach.Drug and alcohol dependence reports · 2025Article
- Safer Opioid Supply programs: Hydromorphone prescribing in Ontario as a harm reduction intervention to combat the drug poisoning crisis.Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique · 2025Article
- Comprehensive substance use services within primary care settings: The Safer Opioid Supply program at London InterCommunity Health Centre.Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique · 2025Article
- Reimagining subjectivities in place: Necropolitical logics of safer supply and housing in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- Barriers and facilitators to safer supply pilot program implementation in Canada: a qualitative assessment of service provider perspectives.Harm reduction journal · 2025Article
- Perspectives on Diversion of Medications From Safer Opioid Supply Programs.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Preferred pharmaceutical-grade opioids to reduce the use of unregulated opioids: A cross-sectional analysis among people who use unregulated opioids in Vancouver, Canada.The International journal on drug policy · 2024Article
- Using drugs alone in single room occupancy housing: Understanding environmental drivers of overdose risk.The International journal on drug policy · 2024Article
- Substance use care innovations during COVID-19: barriers and facilitators to the provision of safer supply at a toronto COVID-19 isolation and recovery site.Harm reduction journal · 2024Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesFentanyl has contributed to a sharp rise in the toxicity of the unregulated drug supply and fatal overdoses in Canada. It has also changed injection practices. Injection frequency has increased as a result and so has equipment sharing and health-related risks. The aim of this analysis was to explore the impact of safer supply programs on injection practices from the perspective of clients and providers in Ontario, Canada.
methodsThe data set included qualitative interviews with 52 clients and 21 providers that were conducted between February and October 2021 across four safer supply programs. Interview excerpts discussing injection practices were extracted, screened, coded and then grouped into themes.
resultsWe identified three themes, each theme corresponding to a change in injection practices. The first change was a decrease in the amount of fentanyl used and a decrease in injection frequency. The second change involved switching to injecting hydromorphone tablets instead of fentanyl. Finally, the third change was stopping injecting altogether and taking safer supply medications orally.
conclusionSafer supply programs can contribute to reducing injection-related health risks in addition to overdose risks. More specifically, they have the potential to address disease prevention and health promotion gaps that stand-alone downstream harm reduction interventions cannot address, by working upstream and providing a safer alternative to fentanyl.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.