- From the laboratory to the street: Doing multidisciplinary research to understand the rising numbers of deaths involving opioids and benzodiazepines By members of the Benzo Opioid Group (Graeme Henderson, Ana Paula Abdala, Chris Bailey, Jo Kesten, Matt Hickman, Jenny Scott, Ai Na Ng, Gabriele Vojt, Hannah Family, Hannah Poulter, Damiana Cavallo, Rebecca Okubadejo, Sara Karimi). A University of Bristol multidisciplinary team from Bristol and Bath University has been working to understand the increase in deaths from taking both opioids and benzodiazepines (benzos). Here they reflect on how this approach has enhanced their research and made it more useful.The problem Drug […]
- How can we estimate how many people inject drugs or are dependent on opioids? By Hayley Jones, Associate Professor in Medical Statistics, and Andreas Markoulidakis, Senior Research Associate, Health Protection Research Unit in Behavioural Science and Evaluation at the University of Bristol Why do we need these estimates? We need accurate estimates of the number of people who are dependent on drugs like heroin or other opioids in a region for several reasons. These include understanding how well treatment and harm reduction efforts are reaching people, assessing the effectiveness of these efforts, and understanding the role of opioid use in causing early […]
- Did Shielding Advice Help Clinically Extremely Vulnerable People during the COVID-19 Pandemic?by Fangxuan Du, MSc Mental Health Studies at King’s College LondonBackgroundImagine you and many people are sailing separately in a river, each with the possibility of sinking, and suddenly you are told that your boat is fragile and more likely to sink, how would you feel?Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, up to 1.3 million people were identified as clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV). Due to pre-existing conditions, they suffered an unequal impact of the pandemic. In the UK, people who were CEV were advised by the government to ‘shield’, including staying at home for 12 […]
