Ompad Danielle C, Shrader Cho-Hee, Snyder Kyle M, Netherland Jules, Vakharia Sheila P, Walker Ingrid
Department of Epidemiology, School of Global Public Health, New York University, New York, NY, USA.
Center for Drug Use and HIV|HCV Research, School of Global Public Health, New York University, New York, NY, USA.
Drug Alcohol Depend Rep. 2024 Jul 8;12:100256. doi: 10.1016/j.dadr.2024.100256. eCollection 2024 Sep.
Despite the recognized value of experiential knowledge, drug use and disclosure of drug use within the drug research community is rarely discussed or studied.
We distributed a cross-sectional online survey using targeted recruitment. Researchers provided information on drug use, disclosure of use (or abstinence) professionally, and their impact via write-in text boxes. We used the general inductive approach to analyze the data.
Of the sample (n=669, 43 countries), 52 % were cisgender women, 89 % had post-graduate education, and 79 % worked in academia. Most (86 %) reported lifetime drug use and 47 % past 3-month use. Among 557 researchers who used drugs, 59 % disclosed their use to institutional colleagues, 59 % to colleagues outside their institution, 25 % to research participants, and 11 % in their research/scholarship. Themes included frequency; context; meaning of drug use disclosure personally, professionally, and socially; and how drug use experience and disclosure informs research. Respondents connected their concerns about disclosure in research with issues of social identity, professional risk, and the role of stigma related to lived experience. Some respondents felt that such concerns reinforce a vacuum, noting that the inability to disclose drug use limits research questions and the knowledge base overall.
Our findings support the dichotomy of thought surrounding the lived experience of drug use: "[They've] used drugs- [they're] biased!" and "[They're] not a drug user-what would [they] know!" Our findings provide an opportunity to reflect upon our positionality and the impact researchers' own drug use may have on the field.
尽管经验性知识具有公认的价值，但药物研究界内药物使用情况及药物使用的披露却很少被讨论或研究。
我们通过定向招募开展了一项横断面在线调查。研究人员通过填写文本框提供了有关药物使用、职业场合中使用情况（或戒毒情况）的披露及其影响的信息。我们采用一般归纳法对数据进行分析。
在样本（n = 669，来自43个国家）中，52%为顺性别女性，89%拥有研究生学历，79%在学术界工作。大多数（86%）报告有终生药物使用史，47%在过去3个月内使用过药物。在557名使用过药物的研究人员中，59%向机构内同事披露了其用药情况，59%向机构外同事披露，25%向研究参与者披露，11%在其研究/学术成果中披露。主题包括用药频率；用药背景；药物使用披露在个人、职业和社会层面的意义；以及药物使用经历和披露如何为研究提供信息。受访者将他们对研究中披露情况的担忧与社会身份问题、职业风险以及与生活经历相关的污名化作用联系起来。一些受访者认为这些担忧加剧了一种空白状态，指出无法披露药物使用情况限制了研究问题以及整体知识库。
我们的研究结果支持围绕药物使用生活经历的两种对立观点：“‘他们’用过药——‘他们’有偏见！”以及“‘他们’不是药物使用者——‘他们’能知道什么！”我们的研究结果为反思我们的立场以及研究人员自身的药物使用可能对该领域产生的影响提供了契机。
