Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Research Scholarships - Master's program

The opioid epidemic continues to be one of the most severe public health crises impacting communities across Canada. In Ontario, Canada, municipal governments are responsible for responding to public health crises by implementing appropriate interventions, providing emergency services, and allocating funding. Most studies exploring the opioid epidemic in Canada examine trends at a federal or provincial level. Existing municipal-level studies focus on large urban centres and research on rural or mixed rural/urban areas remains sparse. Additionally, studies on opioid-related interventions focus on examining each individual service and there is a lack of research on how different services work together to address opioid use. This proposed research is to be done in collaboration with Lakelands Public Health (LPH), the Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC), and Peterborough County-City Paramedics (PCCP) with additional input from knowledge users at the Peterborough Consumption and Treatment Services (CTS) Site and the Rapid Access Addiction Medicine (RAAM) Clinic. This project uses data from three paramedic services that serve rural and indigenous communities in Centra, Ontario: Peterborough County-City Paramedic Service, Haliburton Paramedic Service (HPS), and Kawartha Lakes Paramedic Service (KLPS). We aim to describe statistical trends within opioid-related calls handled by these paramedic services and map the flow of patients with other opioid-related care settings in Central, Ontario. Ultimately, this research is novel, and we aim to bridge the gap in knowledge by analyzing municipal-level opioid data, map patient flow, help inform action at a localized scale, and reduce opioid-related harms in Canadian communities.