Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community

The Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community (JPIC) invites you to submit an abstract for consideration in a special issue on “Harm Reduction Strategies in the Community: A Focus on Opioids and Other Drugs.” JPIC, in print since 1995, provides professionals with up-to-date information on effective programs for community intervention and prevention strategies for practitioners and academics. With an emphasis on mental health and human services, JPIC is of interest to community researchers, healthcare, and social workers, prevention scientists and evaluators considering new approaches to service delivery and community practice, clinical supervisors, education specialists, and administrators in human services.

SAMHSA (2022) defines harm reduction as “a practical and transformative approach that incorporates community driven public health strategies including prevention, risk reduction and health promotion to empower people who use drugs and their families with the choice to live healthy, self-directed, and purpose-filled lives” (p. 1). This strategy is not new, dating back to the start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the early 1980’s when the CDC first made efforts to lower the risks associated with HIV and hepatis C transmission (Kimmel et al., 2021; SAMHSA, 2022).

Harm reduction strategies are now being used by programs that aim to reduce rates of drug overdose, and efforts of this nature have proven to be effective: an evaluation of an overdose education and naloxone distribution program found that the distribution of 250 free naloxone kits was associated with at least three overdose reversals (Lewis et al., 2016). The key to these programs' success has been including people who use drugs or who have lived experiences in designing community-based efforts (SAMHSA, 2022).  Thus, the purpose of this call is to assemble the various harm reduction (opioids and other drugs) efforts conducted in the community.

We are soliciting manuscripts that present original empirical community-based research (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods) that feature a harm reduction framework related to prevention and intervention in the community, especially research that is relevant to the aforementioned trends an integration of addressing social justice, equity, oppression and community responsive treatment.

As a first step, we invite one-to-two page proposal summarizing a pertinent research project. Submit as MS word documents to [email protected] (Type “JPIC special issue Harm Reduction) by May 31, 2024. Authors of selected proposals will be notified by August 2, 2024.

Final manuscripts to be considered for the special issue are due October 1, 2024. Manuscripts are screened by Guest Editors and manuscripts that meet guidelines undergo rigorous blind review by two anonymous referees. For questions about the special issue, contact Guest Editor Rhonda K. Lewis, Ph.D. at [email protected]. Direct all inquires about JPIC to Editor in Chief Judah Viola, Ph.D. (Judah.Viola.nl.edu).

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