Featured Research

New Research Sheds Light on Treatment and Harm Reduction Gaps Among Drug Users

Amidst rising stimulant drug use and an increasingly contaminated drug supply, there is a need for broader communication and fewer barriers to access of harm-reduction strategies

The role of harm reduction in controlling HIV among injecting drug users

With harm reduction, governments can meet their human rights obligations in terms of improved public health outcomes for the general population and in redressing social justice inequities for drug users themselves.

The impact of condom use on the HIV epidemic

Current levels of HIV would be five times higher without condom use and that the scale-up in condoms use averted about 117 million HIV infections.

Housing and harm reduction: what is the role of harm reduction in addressing homelessness?

The introduction and development of ten year plans to end homelessness in North America heralds a new era of systemic responses to homelessness. Central to many of these plans is the adoption of 'Housing First' as a policy response. 

Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Prevention of Substance Use Disorders through Socioecological Strategies

Latimore, A. D., E. Salisbury-Afshar, N. Duff, E. Freiling, B. Kellett, R. D. Sullenger, A. Salman, and the Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Services Working Group of the National Academy of Medicine’s Action Collaborative on Countering the U.S. Opioid Epidemic. 2023. Primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention of substance use disorder through sociological strategies. NAM Perspectives. Discussion Paper, National Academy of Medicine, Washington, DC. 

What Is Harm Reduction?

Protecting the health of people who use drugs requires providing the services and resources they need.

Online gambling forums as a potential target for harm reduction: an exploratory natural language processing analysis of a reddit.com forum

Online gambling markets are rapidly expanding globally; between 2008 and 2022, revenue from online gambling grew from $21.7B to $63.5B.


In response to this rapid growth, there has been growing interest in gambling harm reduction and prevention research. 

How Should Harm Reduction Be Included in Care Continua for Patients With Opioid Use Disorder?

Harm reduction should be embraced as a core component of the continuum of services required for an effective response to the opioid overdose epidemic. Harm reduction interventions, such as syringe services, naloxone distribution, Housing First models, and low-barrier MOUD, are evidence based and should be funded and expanded nationally, with an eye toward reducing inequities.

Deficiencies in public understanding about tobacco harm reduction: results from a United States national survey

The discrepancy between current evidence and public perceptions of relative risk of various tobacco/nicotine products was marked; for most tobacco types, a large proportion of the population held inaccurate harm reduction beliefs.

The Swedish Experience

The risk of a man dying from a tobacco-related illness is less in Sweden than in any other European country, although tobacco consumption is on a comparable level with that of other countries in Europe. Researchers refer to this paradox as “the Swedish Experience”.

The Scientific Foundation for Tobacco Harm Reduction

"Compiled by leading experts in the field, this report makes the case for harm reduction strategies to protect smokers. It demonstrates that smokers smoke predominantly for nicotine, that nicotine itself is not especially hazardous, and that if nicotine could be provided in a form that is acceptable and effective as a cigarette substitute, millions of lives could be saved." – Royal College of Physicians

What the Experts Say

“When supported by the right policies, safer nicotine products can reduce harm and accelerate smoking cessation.” – Dr. David Abrams, Public Health Researcher