Integrating a low-barrier drug checking platform into public health responses to overdose

确保更安全的药物供应的措施是减少过量死亡的一个重要组成部分。芬太尼试纸快速、灵敏、便宜，但不能提供任何关于效力、纯度或其他有害掺杂物存在的信息。目前迫切需要能够识别所有成分并提供活性成分浓度信息的技术。不列颠哥伦比亚省是加拿大药物过量危机的中心，温哥华岛的药物过量死亡率是全国平均水平的两倍多。维多利亚大学的研究人员和实习生是将便携式光谱学用于药物检查作为对过量的公共卫生反应的领导者。与岛屿卫生局合作，我们建议扩大我们目前的药物检查服务，以支持一种有潜力满足所有需求的技术：对检测低浓度高度敏感，成本低，能够广泛分布，or significantly显著reduce减少the need需求for scientists科学家to operate操作instruments仪器and interpret解释results结果.我们是一个独特的化学和社会工作的协作，由计算机科学在一个以病人为导向的研究框架内工作，为医疗保健用户，医疗保健提供者和卫生系统的决策者。我们在健康和减少伤害环境中操作一套最好的便携式光谱仪的经验告诉我们，这个建议是为了构建和实施一个集成平台，该平台将继续技术进步，以提高便携性，能力，速度和准确性，而且成本更低，用户界面不需要雇用训练有素的技术人员。我们的项目提出了一个药物检查平台，有可能克服仪器和人员成本的障碍，以促进公共卫生，最充分地整合药物检查内过量的战略。

Measures to ensure a safer drug supply are an essential component of reducing overdosedeaths. Fentanyl test strips are fast, sensitive, and cheap, but cannot provide any informationon potency, purity, or the existence of other harmful adulterants. There is an urgent need fortechnologies that can identify all components present and provide information on theconcentration of active ingredients. British Columbia is the epicenter of Canadas overdosecrisis and Vancouver Island experiences overdose deaths rates more than twice the nationalaverage. Researchers and student trainees at the University of Victoria are leaders inemploying portable spectroscopy to drug checking as a public health response to overdose.In collaboration with Island Health Authority, we propose to expand on our current drugchecking services to champion one technology which has the potential to meet all needs:highly sensitive to detect low concentrations, low cost to enable broad distribution, and easeof use to either eliminate, or significantly reduce the need for scientists to operate instrumentsand interpret results. We are a unique collaboration of Chemistry and Social Work supportedby Computer Sciences working within a Patient Oriented Research framework that engageshealth care users, health care providers and health system decision makers. Our experiencein operating a suite of the best portable spectrometers available in health and harm reductionsettings informs this proposal to construct and implement an integrated platform thatcontinues technological advances to improve portability, capability, speed and accuracy butalso at a lower-cost and with a user interface that does not require employing highly trainedtechnicians. Our project proposes a drug checking platform that has the potential to overcomethe obstacles of instrument and staffing costs to facilitate public health to most fully integratedrug checking within the overdose strategies.