SIG scholars Dr. Fernando Montero and Dr. Nabila El-Bassel have received a 3-year R34 grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to develop their concept of supply-side harm reduction, working with Puerto Rican and Black people who sell drugs in Philadelphia to design and pilot a drug overdose and HIV prevention intervention. With the study, they aim to reverse the historical exclusion of people who sell drugs from public health research and harm reduction interventions.
Kensington in Philadelphia is a classic example of a segregated post-industrial neighborhood in the U.S. Research by the investigative team has shown that drug suppliers in Kensington are part of demographic groups that control many of the largest retail drug markets around the country. By addressing this gap in research and community engagement with people who sell drugs, this study provides an opportunity to substantially expand access to harm reduction services throughout the country. It opens the door for retail transactions to also be harm reduction interactions, with considerable implications for the future of public health.
This research will be conducted in collaboration with some of the most widely respected experts in the fields of substance use and HIV research, including Dr. Philippe Bourgois (UCLA), Dr. Victoria Frye (SIG), Dr. David Metzger (UPenn), and Dr. Susan Tross (CUIMC). It will also be conducted in partnership with community-based health service providers in Philadelphia, most especially the organization Savage Sisters, headed by Sarah Laurel. This study is possible thanks to the support of NYU’s Center for Drug Use and HIV/HCV Research, which funded a pilot study to conduct the preliminary qualitative research that informs this one.
"We are thrilled to launch our overdose and HIV prevention study with people who use and sell drugs in Kensington, a neighborhood where I lived as a young man from 2008 to 2012," said PI Fernando Montero. "Getting this grant is a testament to the courage of NIH staff and the heroic work of community organizations like Savage Sisters, as well as the groundbreaking research of Philippe Bourgois and Laurie Hart, medical anthropologists who taught me how to be a public health researcher while I lived in Kensington. This study is an opportunity to go beyond critique of historical exclusions in public health research and move into the terrain of community organizing alongside people who we often disregard either because we vilify them or because they are not easy to redeem with a quick turn of phrase."