Grant: Operating Grant: Evaluation of Interventions to Address the Opioid Crisis

Opioid-related overdose and death has become a public health crisis in Canada, with approximately 4,000 opioid-related deaths occurring nationally in 2017 alone. Importantly, the majority of opioid-related deaths are accidental and preventable with naloxone, a safe and effective treatment that works quickly to reverse opioid overdose and save lives. The success of take-home naloxone programs has prompted both the World Health Organization and the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition to urge that naloxone be made readily available to patients who are prescribed opioids and to bystanders who are likely to witness overdoses. In 2016, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) created the Ontario Naloxone Program for Pharmacies (ONPP), allowing pharmacists to provide take-home naloxone at no charge to eligible individuals at high risk of overdose and death. We will use Ontario's health record databases to study how successful the program has been in providing naloxone to those eligible to receive it through this program, how this differs across Ontario and among different groups of people who take opioids, and whether the program is having a measurable effect on reducing deaths from opioid overdoses in Ontario. We will also interview at least 50 people who take opioids from various backgrounds to understand barriers to getting naloxone from pharmacies and how this program could be made better. All work will be overseen by a steering committee comprised of patients, pharmacists, physicians, researchers and policy-makers to ensure broad relevance, uptake and dissemination. As governments try to find solutions to the problem of opioid overdose, our evaluation of the ONPP will provide much needed information about the success of this program and how it might be improved,. These observations will help other provinces considering similar harm reduction programs across Canada.