Evaluating Substance Use and Harm Reduction Programs; Assessing stigma against drug use in California
Susan Ivey, Professor
Public Health
Closed. This professor is continuing with Spring 2025 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Fall 2025.
We are looking for a student who would be interested in working with Dr. Susan Ivey and Dr. Winston Tseng (School of Public Health) to analyze county-level data on overdoses and deaths from overdose, risk factors, and harm reduction policies (fentanyl testing, xylazine testing, Narcan) to evaluate programs to reduce opioid deaths and overdoses in our area. Students may also help on interviews with organizations engaged in harm reduction, IRB activities, reports and policy briefs that can be used for clinician education, program changes, or policy/advocacy purposes. We will also interview some laypersons not involved in HR or substance use to assess stigma and biases against others. We would greatly value skills such as prior qualitative research (interviews), analysis, and Spanish language fluency!
Role: The student will have readings and regular meetings with Drs. Ivey and Tseng as well as staff research associate Morgan. Students can participate in project meetings on program evaluation and quality improvement efforts, HR, stigma reduction using qualitative methods. The student will work with the PIs, project manager, and local organizations to understand opioid prevention programs including stigma reduction. This may include quantitative and qualitative approaches to gathering information about this overdose crisis. We use a trauma-informed care model. Potential for posters or publication in the future. Looking for minimum 1 year commitment.
Qualifications: Should have completed at least one course in statistics/epidemiology. Must be able to conduct basic data entry or importing of text data to produce information about drug use, buprenorphine use, stigma against drug use. We are hoping to identify a student who also can create visually pleasing briefs, maps, charts, graphs, and tables to appear in reports or policy briefs. Plusses we value include experience conducting interviews or analyzing qualitative data, using GIS, and Spanish language skills.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Dr. Winston Tseng, Staff Researcher
Hours: 3-5 hrs
Off-Campus Research Site: Our center is Health Research for Action (Dr. Ivey's research center) located in Golden Bear Center. We anticipate most of the work will occur virtually, often via Zoom meetings. However, we will also meet sometimes at the research center (Tseng/Ivey offices at GBC). The student should be comfortable working on their own on data analysis or qualitative analysis and be able to prepare products to review every other week. Dr. Ivey also has a past URAP and past graduate student that the student can engage with as a team with other UCB students.
Related website: http://healthresearchforaction.org/
Social Sciences Biological & Health Sciences