In an effort to reduce fatal drug overdoses, Providence nonprofit Project Weber/RENEW is planning to cut the ribbon on Tuesday to a new facility at which people will be able to use drugs under medical supervision.
When it opens to clients, the “Overdose Prevention Center,” or OPC, will be the first in the U.S. to be approved under regulations created by state law. OPCs currently exist in the U.S. in a gray area of federal law: not explicitly banned, but not clearly condoned.
New York City opened the nation’s first two government-supported facilities in 2021, though federal prosecutors have threatened to shut them down and it’s unclear how the incoming Trump Administration will treat these facilities. Vermont plans to open a pilot OPC in Burlington after lawmakers passed enabling legislation earlier this year.
However, similar facilities have been open in Europe, Canada and Australia for years.
Brandon Marshall, professor of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health, has studied OPCs and is currently helping to lead a study funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health on the OPCs in New York and Rhode Island.
The Public’s Radio host Luis Hernandez spoke with Marshall to learn more about what the research says about the effectiveness of OPCs.
Interview Highlights
On how an Overdose Prevention Center works
Brandon Marshall: Overdose Prevention Centers are community-based spaces where the primary purpose is to reverse overdoses and save lives.
Staff at these programs help connect people to a host of health and social services; things like medical care, harm-reduction resources, drug treatment, and recovery supports. And as you mentioned, trained staff are also available to intervene if someone experiences an overdose using their own pre-obtained substances.
On what recent research says about the effectiveness of OPCs in reducing overdoses
Marshall: I was fortunate to lead a study that was published in 2011 that demonstrated a 35% reduction in overdose mortality after the Overdose Prevention Center opened in Vancouver, Canada.
A study from France also found a more than 50 percent reduction in overdoses among people who used overdose prevention centers in that country compared to people who used other harm-reduction programs. So we’re going to study this program in Providence and we’re evaluating the sites in New York City, as well, to see whether we see the same kinds of reductions.
But I would argue that the evidence in other countries is very promising and compelling.
On what research says about the effect OPCs have on the surrounding community, such as open drug-use, crime and unsanitary conditions
Marshall: Research, fortunately, has been done in Australia, Canada, many parts of Europe that has evaluated some of these community impacts that you’re talking about. Studies consistently show that drug-related disorder and crime in the neighborhoods in which Overdose Prevention Centers are located actually go down after these facilities are opened.
We’ll be conducting this research and evaluating these outcomes in Providence, as well. Right now we have research assistants on the street in Providence that are evaluating measures of public drug-use, homelessness, and other measures of drug-related disorder in the neighborhood in which the Overdose Prevention Center will be located, so we can evaluate in almost real-time whether there are any changes.
And we’ll report that as soon as we can to stakeholders and the general public in Rhode Island. But the research from other countries, again, typically shows reductions in some of these community measures of drug-related disorder.
