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Substance Use Policy and Practice in the Covid-19 Pandemic: Learning From Early Pandemic Responses Through Internationally Comparative Field Data Publisher Pubmed



Aronowitz SV1 ; Carroll JJ2 ; Hansen H3 ; Jauffretroustide M4, 5 ; Parker CM6 ; Suhailsindhu S7 ; Albizugarcia C8 ; Alegria M9 ; Arrendondo J10 ; Baldacchino A11 ; Bluthenthal R12 ; Bourgois P13 ; Burraway J14 ; Chen JS15 Show All Authors
Authors
  1. Aronowitz SV1
  2. Carroll JJ2
  3. Hansen H3
  4. Jauffretroustide M4, 5
  5. Parker CM6
  6. Suhailsindhu S7
  7. Albizugarcia C8
  8. Alegria M9
  9. Arrendondo J10
  10. Baldacchino A11
  11. Bluthenthal R12
  12. Bourgois P13
  13. Burraway J14
  14. Chen JS15
  15. Ekhtiari H16
  16. Elkhoy H17
  17. Farhoudian A18
  18. Friedman J19
  19. Jordan A20
  20. Kato L21
  21. Knight K22
  22. Martinez C23
  23. Mcneil R24
  24. Murray H25
  25. Namirembe S26
  26. Radfar R27
  27. Roe L28
  28. Sarang A29
  29. Scherz C30
  30. Tay Wee Teck J31
  31. Textor L19
  32. Thi Hai Oanh K32
Show Affiliations
Authors Affiliations
  1. 1. Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States
  2. 2. Department of Anthropology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, United States
  3. 3. UCLA Center for Social Medicine and Humanities, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States
  4. 4. Centre d'etude des mouvements sociaux (Inserm U12/76/CNRS UMR 8044/EHESS), Paris, France
  5. 5. Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, Buffalo University of Social Science, NY, United States
  6. 6. The University of Manchester, Manchester University, Manchester, United Kingdom
  7. 7. University of California Los Angeles, UCLA Center for Social Medicine and Humanities, Los Angeles, United States
  8. 8. Universidad de Puerto Rico, Graduate School of Public Health, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  9. 9. Massachusetts General Hospital, Disparities Research Unit, Boston, United States
  10. 10. Center for Research and Economic Teaching, Drug Policy Program, Aguascalientes, MX, Mexico
  11. 11. University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Medicine, United Kingdom
  12. 12. Population and Public Health Sciences, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, United States
  13. 13. Center for Social Medicine and Humanities, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States
  14. 14. Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, United States
  15. 15. Institute of Science, Technology and Society, National Yang-Ming University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
  16. 16. Laureate Institute for Brain Research, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, United States
  17. 17. Neurology and Psychiatry, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
  18. 18. University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Substance Abuse and Dependence Research Center, Tehran, Iran
  19. 19. David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States
  20. 20. Yale University, Psychiary, NH, United States
  21. 21. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Overdose Response Strategy, Atlanta, United States
  22. 22. Humanities and Social Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
  23. 23. Medical Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
  24. 24. Addiction Medicine, Yale University, NH, United States
  25. 25. Anthropology, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
  26. 26. Uganda Recovery, Mukono, Uganda
  27. 27. Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Thought, Culture and Health Institute, Isfahan, Iran
  28. 28. Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom
  29. 29. Andrey Rylkov Foundation for Health and Social Justice, President, RU, Moscow, Russian Federation
  30. 30. University of Virginia, Anthropology, Charlottesville, United States
  31. 31. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
  32. 32. Center for Supporting Community Development Initiatives, Executive Director, Hanoi, VN, Viet Nam

Source: Global Public Health Published:2022


Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented natural experiment in drug policy, treatment delivery, and harm reduction strategies by exposing wide variation in public health infrastructures and social safety nets around the world. Using qualitative data including ethnographic methods, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews with people who use drugs (PWUD) and Delphi-method with experts from field sites spanning 13 different countries, this paper compares national responses to substance use during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Field data was collected by the Substance Use x COVID-19 (SU x COVID) Data Collaborative, an international network of social scientists, public health scientists, and community health practitioners convened to identify and contextualise health service delivery models and social protections that influence the health and wellbeing of PWUD during COVID-19. Findings suggest that countries with stronger social welfare systems pre-COVID introduced durable interventions targeting structural drivers of health. Countries with fragmented social service infrastructures implemented temporary initiatives for PWUD led by non-governmental organisations. The paper summarises the most successful early pandemic responses seen across countries and ends by calling for greater systemic investments in social protections for PWUD, diversion away from criminal-legal systems toward health interventions, and integrated harm reduction, treatment and recovery supports for PWUD. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.