ReportNeedles.ca: A real-time needle collection tool to foster community health partnerships

Online Publication Date:
May 16, 2024
Publication Status:
Awaiting Publication
Manuscript PDF File:

**Forthcoming in Progress in Community Health Partnershipsv (PHCHP) 18.4. All rights reserved.**

ABSTRACT

            Technology-mediated interactions between the public, healthcare agencies, and researchers can facilitate of community health partnerships. The use of such novel technologies can lead to innovations in public health research to address disparities and access issues. This article presents the web-based, real-time needle collection tool ReportNeedles.ca and describes its use in an ongoing community health partnership to deploy and evaluate pop-up interventions for blood-borne infection prevention and substance use harm reduction. Since April 2021, 34,350 needles have been collected from 466 public reports on the ReportNeedles.ca app in the city of Regina, Saskatchewan (population: ~215,000). This non-walkable city with pronounced needle prevalence may be representative of medium-sized cities in Canada, the United States, and elsewhere, where brick-and-mortar healthcare is predominantly accessible only to people of relative stability. This article discusses the tool’s development, implementation, and evaluation plan alongside its potential for blood-borne infection prevention, harm reduction, and community-based participatory research.