About the ProjectIn association with the North Carolina Injury & Violence Prevention Branch, the University of North Carolina Injury Prevention Research Center is in Year 3 of a multi-state overdose prevention initiative. This initiative connects harm reduction practitioners from seven states in the central Appalachian region and surrounding areas in order to build a network for peers to share their knowledge and expertise with each other. Through this project we have created what is now referred to as the Sharing Harm Reduction Practices (SHARP) Network. The SHARP network supports harm reduction work in communities across central Appalachia, including grassroots community groups and public health practitioners, to identify successful strategies for addressing the challenges presented by the opioid overdose epidemic.
This initiative is a CDC-funded peer-to-peer project under the Overdose Data to Action three-year grant received by North Carolina.
Our core project team is made up of representatives from the North Carolina Injury & Violence Prevention Branch and the University of North Carolina Injury Prevention Research Center. This initiative has brought together a strategic planning committee with representatives from a group of seven Central Appalachian states (NC, VA, WV, OH, KY, TN, and GA). The committee includes harm reduction practitioners and overdose prevention experts from across these seven states who have provided guidance to the core project team on establishing the learning network.
In the planning stage, we will use key informant interviews to identify:
Once the learning network is set up, its purpose will be to support harm reduction efforts by:
We interviewed 62 harm reduction practitioners and policy experts from our 7 partner states on best practices for harm reduction, barriers to services, and what they would like from a peer resource sharing network.
