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Examining Places Where People Experiencing Homelessness Overdose

Harm reduction and addiction treatment services should be available to support people experiencing homelessness who use drugs in shelters and supportive housing. In addition, we should target outreach to blocks with specific features (e.g., scaffolding), and we also need policy-level interventions to address neighborhood processes that manifest on city streets (e.g., loitering).

Each additional off-premise alcohol outlet in a Baltimore City neighborhood was associated with a 16.6% increase in the neighborhood drug overdose rate. This is the first study to link off-premise alcohol outlets to drug overdoses, presenting an opportunity for harm reduction strategies and outreach.