What Would Equitable Harm Reduction Look Like?

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Health Equity
• Social Justice

Background:

• Racial and ethnic inequities persist in healthcare, including harm reduction programs.
• Current harm reduction strategies often lack explicit antiracist frameworks.
• Person-centered interventions alone do not resolve systemic disparities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine how structural determinants of health frameworks can incorporate antiracism.
• To identify how harm reduction programs can effectively address racial inequities.
• To provide recommendations for antiracist harm reduction programming.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of existing structural determinants of health frameworks.
• Review of documented racial and ethnic inequities in harm reduction.
• Examination of racialization patterns in drug use policies and practices.

Main Results:

• Harm reduction programs must actively express social justice and health equity.
• Acknowledging historical and ongoing racialization of drug use is crucial.
• Current frameworks often fail to adequately address systemic discrimination.

Conclusions:

• Effective harm reduction requires explicit antiracist policies and practices.
• Integrating social justice principles can mitigate marginalization for people who use drugs (PWUD).
• Recommendations are provided for implementing equitable, antiracist care in harm reduction.