The opioid crisis has hit Philadelphia particularly hard, with over 46 overdose deaths per 100,000 residents in 2017, twice the national average. In response, the City of Philadelphia developed an overarching prevention strategy, the Resilience Project, which includes both services targeted toward people who use opioids and neighborhood environment interventions that address the blighted conditions where most overdoses occur.
The project aims to evaluate the effectiveness and implementation of two Resilience Project programs to reduce opioid overdose: (1) the Alternative Response Unit (ARU) that accompanies ambulances responding to overdoses and aims to deliver harm reduction and care linkage to people who refuse hospital transport, and (2) blight remediation of abandoned buildings and land.
This project is funded by a CDC R01 grant and led by Drs. Gina South and Zachary Meisel. You can learn more about SPARROw from the Urban Health Lab.