26 Avoiding Death From Stimulant Toxicity: Resiliency Among People Who Use Stimulants

Abstract

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: The project investigates the role that resiliency may play within individual, interpersonal, social, and structural contexts in protecting against acute lethal stimulant (meth/amphetamine or cocaine) toxicity. Identifying preventative factors is crucial in developing and implementing risk reduction strategies for people who use stimulants. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: This is a qualitative study involving in-depth interviews via questionnaire assessing resiliency factors among persons living in San Francisco who have used primarily either meth/amphetamine or cocaine for at least 5 years. The interviews will be coded for salient and recurrent themes and analyzed for code frequency, cooccurrences, clustering of themes and representative excerpts to highlight emergent themes as well as stressors and resilience factors at multiple levels. We aim to assess for substance use patterns, multiple domains of resiliency, medical and psychiatric complaints, and risk reduction strategies. We will recruit participants to match recent decedents from acute stimulant toxicity in various domains including salient demographic information and neighborhood characteristics. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: The anticipated results include a qualitative interview guide for living persons using stimulants in San Francisco to be used to gain insight into the community, illustrate participants’ substance use practices, and allow for better characterization of several discrete resiliency factors that have protected the participants and other community members from suffering lethal stimulant toxicity. We expect to identify individual components (e.g. use patterns, use of harm reduction supplies), interpersonal/social factors (e.g. drug using network, friendships, community connection), and structural influences (e.g. access to care, safe use sites, house and economic stability) that all play a role in resiliency against lethal stimulant toxicity. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Stimulant use is common, along with rising deaths involving stimulants in urban counties and in smaller rural/non-metro counties which are disproportionately affected, posing a public health challenge. We will find discrete, modifiable risk and resiliency factors that can be manipulated to minimize the chances of outcomes like overdose and death.