This is an academic paper that examines how the challenges presented by the coronavirus may further marginalize people who use drugs, especially in rural areas. The healthcare system, criminal justice system, housing, and overdose risks are discussed.

This is a brief report from the New York State Department of Health that provides guidelines to opioid overdose prevention programs operating in the state during the coronavirus pandemic. The document includes links to resources. 

This is a report from ODMAP, an overdose surveillance organization, which found that 62% of participating counties experienced an increase in overdose submissions after March 19, 2020, there was an 18% increase in overdose submissions after stay-at-home mandates, and clusters of overdoses have moved from urban areas to suburban and rural areas. 

The Homeless Health Care Los Angeles Center for Harm Reduction (HHCLA-HRC) provides harm reduction and treatment services to marginalized populations. They have adapted to COVID-19 with two innovative models, the "telephone booth" model and the "coordinated pharmacy" model, with preliminary results showing that they are maintaining patient enrollment and engagement of medications for opioid use disorder. 

This is a report from the National Council for Behavioral Health that conducted an environmental scan consisting of a literature review and key informant interviews to better understand the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on harm reduction services and people who use drugs. It highlights how services have been disrupted and how programs have adapted.  

This is a report which offers a checklist of methods that health insurers and purchasers can utilize to promote safe and affordable care while also emphasizing opioid safety and lowering opioid related deaths. The four primary areas of focus for this checklist are prevention, management, treatment, and mortality prevention. 

This is a report from the Institute for Excellence in Government (author Wiseman) that presents several case studies that use data-driven approaches to address the opioid crisis. Themes in the cases examined were that collaboration is key, leadership matters, and continuous experimentation is required as the opioid crisis continues to evolve. 

A Health and Human Services (HHS) report by RAND that presents findings from a scoping study to assess the types of data sources and data-linkage efforts that are currently being used or could potentially be leveraged to support research and evaluations to combat the opioid crisis. Alternative pain management, overdose prevention, and prevention/treatment/recovery strategies are addressed. Secondary data sources are also discussed that are relevant to opioid research. 

This article discusses how current anti-drug policies around the world have historically targeted marginalized communities. The authors provide suggestions for new drug-related policies that aim to decrease incarceration rates through methods such as the decriminalization of drug-related offenses. 

This is an academic paper that provides commentary on the initiative in Burlington, Vermont to decriminalize the possession of buprenorphine, written by a state attorney and the chief of police, and the plan to initiate the same legal approach in Philadelphia. Burlington had a 50% decrease in overdose deaths from 2017 to 2018, which appears to have been sustained in 2019, partly attributable to this initiative as part of a multi-pronged approach.

This initiative shows promise in reducing stigma, expanding access to a life-saving medication, and no longer criminalizing a person struggling with opioid use disorder who possesses an effective means to treat this condition. 

This is a collection of reports from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing that provides resources to support the adoption and implementation of deflection and pre-arrest programs (DPAP) to better support people at risk of opioid overdose. Successful initiatives across the United States are highlighted. There is a focus on implementing a harm reduction approach, integrating peer services, and  DPAP in rural communities. 

In this academic paper, the Appalachian region of Eastern Kentucky, which has been disproportionately affected by the opioid crisis, was used as the context for a healthcare hackathon, run by MIT Hacking Medicine, to create grassroots healthcare innovation ideas through a systematic design thinking process, yielding numerous novel strategies, such as mobile applications and community health programs.

Using grassroots entrepreneurship, the hackathon democratized the process of innovation by shifting the resources and onus of resolving the public challenge from the institutional level to the average citizen. Citizens were selected through an application process among Eastern Kentucky residents that had been impacted first-hand by the opioid crisis.