Overdose clinical trials at UCSD

A hybrid type 1 study will be conducted to evaluate efficacy and preliminary implementation considerations for a novel intervention to promote uptake of drug checking services (DCS) and safer drug use behaviors among people who use drugs (PWUD) to reduce incidence of overdose (OD) and HIV and Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections in San Diego County. Along with ~50 other syringe services programs (SSPs) in the US, the Harm Reduction Coalition San Diego (HRCSD), a local SSP, recently launched CheckSD (San Diego), a DCS using test strips (TS) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry (FTIR) that allows people to submit drug samples with non-nominal identifiers and obtain personalized results. While most existing DCS using FTIR offer some counseling, no theory-based interventions to increase DCS uptake and promote post-DCS adoption of safer drug use behaviors have been rigorously evaluated