Migration Patterns from an Open Illicit Drug Scene and Emergency Department Visits among People Who Use Illicit Drugs in Vancouver, Canada.

ABSTRACT:

Background

People who use illicit drugs (PWUD) experience various adverse health outcomes leading to increased healthcare service utilization. PWUD are also a highly mobile population which poses challenges to healthcare delivery. The objective of this study was to identify migration patterns from the Downtown Eastside (DTES), an urban illicit drug scene in Vancouver and to estimate the impact of different migration patterns on two outcomes: a) emergency department (ED) visits and b) ED visits resulting in inpatient admission among PWUD.

Methods

Three prospective cohorts of PWUD in Vancouver were linked with regional ED data. We defined the optimal number of trajectory groups that best represented distinct patterns of migration from Vancouver's DTES using a latent class grow

SUBMITTER: El-Akkad SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8855781 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature