ABOUT the project
The Opioid Chapters is a collaborative project by the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network (ODPRN) and Healthy Debate: Faces of Health Care. This project was created to release a special edition series of interviews and multimedia content with individuals across Ontario who have lived experience with opioids, as well as other perspectives from physicians, community workers and family members.
The ODPRN has identified opioid safety and drug policy as a chief research priority for the past nine years. As the importance of patient-oriented research and the need for understanding the individual experiences of those struggling with chronic pain and/or opioid use disorder has grown across Canada, the ODPRN expanded their patient engagement around this issue. This included a qualitative analysis of patient perspectives that is nearing completion. Through these focus groups, we realized that policy-makers, clinicians and the public would benefit from hearing the wide range of patient experiences in this area. This is what led to the collaboration between the ODPRN and Healthy Debate.
OUR TEAM
Media Production/ Healthy Debate
Seema Marwaha – Physician, researcher and journalist responsible for media and content production, photography, videography, and web design @SeemaMarwahaMD
Sidney Weiss – Summer Intern responsible for media and content production, videography, and web design @sidweisss
Dafna Izenberg – Managing editor at Health Debate, responsible for content production and copy-editing @dafnaizenberg
Jeremy Petch – Researcher and previous documentary photographer responsible for photography @JeremyPetch
Andreas Laupacis – Editor-in-chief of Healthy Debate responsible for project oversight, mentorship and interviews @AndreasLaupacis
ODPRN
Tara Gomes – Epidemiologist and lead researcher responsible for project conception, oversight and creation @Tara_Gomes
Dana Shearer – Knowledge broker responsible for project management, communications and patient engagement @danateresa_
ONTARIO DRUG POLICY RESEARCH NETWORK
The ODPRN is a network of drug policy researchers from across Ontario with the primary objective of generating scientifically sound evidence on drug utilization, safety, and effectiveness for the purpose of informing drug policy decisions. The three core principles of the ODPRN are: scientific rigour, timeliness, and policy relevance. Since 2008, the ODPRN has undertaken a large program of research focused on describing and understanding patterns of opioid prescribing and opioid-related harm across Ontario, and more broadly in Canada. Click here to find out more about the ODPRN’s opioid-related research, and here for more information about the ODPRN’s broad research network.
Please visit our website for more information about ODPRN and our research: http://www.odprn.ca/
HEALTHY DEBATE
Healthy Debate is a website focused on health care and health policy issues in Canada, with a monthly readership of about 100,000. Faces of Health Care is a photojournalism initiative that tells the stories of people who are using and working in Ontario’s health care system.
Healthy Debate website: http://www.healthydebate.ca/
Faces of Health Care: http://healthydebate.ca/faces-health-care
WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO:
ALL OF OUR PARTICIPANTS - Thank you for sharing your stories and trusting us to tell them.
JORDAN OMSTEAD - Music
CANADIAN INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH RESEARCH - Project Funder