Safer Use Research and Education Center

Values

Collaboration

Supporting early career researchers
Promoting and centering the work of community partners
Building better community-led research initiatives
Platforming creative, cross-disciplinary approaches to safer use

Advocacy

Advancing effective public health policy solutions to inequities in access to safer use strategies
Leveraging academic expertise and scientific evidence for policy improvement
Supporting the advocacy and policy needs of community partners

Research

Designing, conducting and disseminating high-quality research on safer use strategies
Prioritizing research with translational potential for community beneficence
Supporting new and novel community-based participatory research efforts

Education

Developing and disseminating academic resources for integrating community-centered care philosophies into research and practice
Supporting the educational development of community members with lived experience
Promote best practices in safer use research among early career academics

Promoting preventative self-care practices among people who use substances and their communities

The Safer Use Research and Education (SURE) Center aims to promote the needs of people who use drugs and address the ongoing pubic health emergency posed by accidental drug poisoning by investigating and implementing effective safer use strategies in collaboration with the community groups who have pioneered and developed the infrastructure of safer use.

Research Foci

Health Topics

Substance use disorders and addiction treatment
Polysubstance use
Health care utilization
Health care access
Medication-assisted treatment
Primary and secondary community naloxone distribution
Drug checking technology and safer supply strategies
Community-based health care distribution
HIV/AIDS and intravenous substance use
Interactions between public safety and substance using populations
Violence and victimization
Racial disparities in substance use treatment
Anti-stigma initiatives

Methodologies

Community-based participatory research
Implementation science
Intervention design and evaluation
Qualitative research methods (including PhotoVoice, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, concept mapping)
Quantitative research methods (survey development, biobehavioral data collection, needs assessments
Capacity building

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