Grant: Team Grant: Strength.Resilient/Equitable Public Health Systems- Community Sector

Currently there are upwards of 22 Canadians who die from a drug poisoning event (overdose) every day. This cumulatively is more than heart attacks, car accidents, and homicides combined. One key element to the crisis is the unpredictability of the current drug supply. Numerous adulterants are currently found in illicit substances such as benzodiazepines, xylazine, and more potent analogues of fentanyl such as carfentanyl. To understand the variation on drug supply various data sources are often utilized, including drug seizure analysis, spot drug testing, wastewater drug analysis, and coroner's toxicity reports to name a few. In order to better understand the current drug supply in Canada, and in partnership with the Canadian Centre of Substance use and Addiction, we propose the creation of a key substance surveillance dashboard around substances. The dashboard will ideally incorporate key data sources including: 1. Drug testing: both formal laboratory-based and informal in the community. 2. Urine toxicology drug screens 3. Waste water data 4. Coroner's toxicology reports 5. Police data from drug and substance seizures. Additional data sources from twitter and social media. The dashboard will be derived from data provided to CCSA through already established partnerships with other agencies. This data will be analyzed and visualized with time and geography parameters and be overlaid with hospitalization, morbidity, and mortality data. Using machine learning, we will leverage the data to predict potential spikes in overdose events which will help inform a national drug alert system. Stakeholder engagement and mixed methods approaches will be used to evaluate the utility of both the dashboard and drug alert system using an implementation science framework.