Blue Light Phones as Potential Locations for Deploying Public Access Naloxone Kits on a College Campus

Objective: Opioid use and the risk of opioid overdose are growing public health concerns for college-aged adults. Naloxone can temporarily reverse opioid overdoses, but only if easily accessible. On most college campuses, "blue light" phones (BLPs)--call boxes topped with a blue light--off...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of American college health 2022, Vol.70 (1), p.18-21
Main Authors: Dworkis, Daniel A, Tang, Willis, Ritcheson, Nicolas C. M, Raviv, Orian, Fowler, Andrew, Ellig, Katelin, Goley, Stephanie, Arora, Sanjay
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access to Health Care
Adult
College campuses
College Environment
Drug Abuse
Drug overdose
Drug Overdose - drug therapy
Drug Therapy
Emergency Programs
Emergency services
Geographic Information Systems
Health problems
Humans
Naloxone
Naloxone - therapeutic use
Narcotic Antagonists - therapeutic use
Opiate Overdose
Opioids
Overdoses
Prevention
Public access
Public Health
Students
Telecommunications
Universities
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Objective: Opioid use and the risk of opioid overdose are growing public health concerns for college-aged adults. Naloxone can temporarily reverse opioid overdoses, but only if easily accessible. On most college campuses, "blue light" phones (BLPs)--call boxes topped with a blue light--offer visible access to emergency services. We hypothesized that BLPs would provide potential naloxone access points. Participants: A major university campus in Los Angeles, CA. Methods: BLP locations were obtained using Google Maps, and the area of campus within a set distance to each BLP calculated. To model effects of loss or diversion, we simulated the random loss of various BLPs. Results: Placing naloxone kits at the 59 BLP locations could provide access within 100 m to 91.5% of the campus. With loss of half of the BLPs, campus access remained above 70%. Conclusions: Naloxone at BLP locations could be accessed from almost all campus areas.
ISSN:0744-8481
1940-3208
DOI:10.1080/07448481.2020.1726931