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Accessing needle exchange services in disasters for remote areas of Aotearoa New Zealand

BACKGROUND: Needle Exchange Programme (NEP) mobile outreach services in Aotearoa New Zealand distribute injecting equipment to people who inject drugs (PWID) living in remote regions. In disasters, continued access to such services is imperative for the health and wellbeing of PWID. Disasters can co...

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Autores principales: Rijnink, Anne, Blake, Denise, Groot, Shiloh, Brough, Chris
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9771773/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36544156
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12954-022-00709-2
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author Rijnink, Anne
Blake, Denise
Groot, Shiloh
Brough, Chris
author_facet Rijnink, Anne
Blake, Denise
Groot, Shiloh
Brough, Chris
author_sort Rijnink, Anne
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Needle Exchange Programme (NEP) mobile outreach services in Aotearoa New Zealand distribute injecting equipment to people who inject drugs (PWID) living in remote regions. In disasters, continued access to such services is imperative for the health and wellbeing of PWID. Disasters can compound existing inequities, particularly in regions characterised by poor or limited infrastructure, smaller populations, and challenging socioeconomic conditions. To gain insight into the barriers that prevent access to NEP harm-reduction services and understand the needs of PWID prior to and during disasters, this study foregrounds the voices of PWID based on the West Coast of the South Island, Aotearoa New Zealand. METHODS: This qualitative study applied an interpretive phenomenological analysis approach, where 14 PWID and one key NEP staff member took part in semi-structured interviews. The interviews provided the opportunity for participants to share their experiences and perspectives about accessing sterile drug-injecting equipment during disasters, including the four-week COVID-19 Level 4 lockdown in March 2020. In total five superordinate and 14 subordinate themes were identified from the interveiws. RESULTS: This study focuses on four of the key themes that impacted accessibility to NEP services: infrastructural hazards and equipment costs; social capital and practical support from peers and key contact networks; social stigma in public locations, including NEP-based pharmacies and emergency centres; and potential solutions to NEP equipment accessibility as frequently suggested by participants. CONCLUSIONS: Access to NEP services is essential during natural hazard and human-generated disasters, as such NEP mobile outreach services and disaster resilience efforts should focus on maintaining service continuity for PWID during adverse times. This study champions a needs-based, stigma free approach to inclusive harm-reduction and emergency management practices for groups with specific needs in a disaster context.
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spelling pubmed-97717732022-12-22 Accessing needle exchange services in disasters for remote areas of Aotearoa New Zealand Rijnink, Anne Blake, Denise Groot, Shiloh Brough, Chris Harm Reduct J Research BACKGROUND: Needle Exchange Programme (NEP) mobile outreach services in Aotearoa New Zealand distribute injecting equipment to people who inject drugs (PWID) living in remote regions. In disasters, continued access to such services is imperative for the health and wellbeing of PWID. Disasters can compound existing inequities, particularly in regions characterised by poor or limited infrastructure, smaller populations, and challenging socioeconomic conditions. To gain insight into the barriers that prevent access to NEP harm-reduction services and understand the needs of PWID prior to and during disasters, this study foregrounds the voices of PWID based on the West Coast of the South Island, Aotearoa New Zealand. METHODS: This qualitative study applied an interpretive phenomenological analysis approach, where 14 PWID and one key NEP staff member took part in semi-structured interviews. The interviews provided the opportunity for participants to share their experiences and perspectives about accessing sterile drug-injecting equipment during disasters, including the four-week COVID-19 Level 4 lockdown in March 2020. In total five superordinate and 14 subordinate themes were identified from the interveiws. RESULTS: This study focuses on four of the key themes that impacted accessibility to NEP services: infrastructural hazards and equipment costs; social capital and practical support from peers and key contact networks; social stigma in public locations, including NEP-based pharmacies and emergency centres; and potential solutions to NEP equipment accessibility as frequently suggested by participants. CONCLUSIONS: Access to NEP services is essential during natural hazard and human-generated disasters, as such NEP mobile outreach services and disaster resilience efforts should focus on maintaining service continuity for PWID during adverse times. This study champions a needs-based, stigma free approach to inclusive harm-reduction and emergency management practices for groups with specific needs in a disaster context. BioMed Central 2022-12-22 /pmc/articles/PMC9771773/ /pubmed/36544156 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12954-022-00709-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Rijnink, Anne
Blake, Denise
Groot, Shiloh
Brough, Chris
Accessing needle exchange services in disasters for remote areas of Aotearoa New Zealand
title Accessing needle exchange services in disasters for remote areas of Aotearoa New Zealand
title_full Accessing needle exchange services in disasters for remote areas of Aotearoa New Zealand
title_fullStr Accessing needle exchange services in disasters for remote areas of Aotearoa New Zealand
title_full_unstemmed Accessing needle exchange services in disasters for remote areas of Aotearoa New Zealand
title_short Accessing needle exchange services in disasters for remote areas of Aotearoa New Zealand
title_sort accessing needle exchange services in disasters for remote areas of aotearoa new zealand
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9771773/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36544156
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12954-022-00709-2
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