Department of Emergency Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, 8303-112 St NW - Room 7-80, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2T4, Canada.
Clinical Epidemiology Department, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, 501 Smyth Box 511, Ottawa, ON, K1H 8L6, Canada.
Subst Abuse Treat Prev Policy. 2024 Sep 4;19(1):40. doi: 10.1186/s13011-024-00622-w.
Examining support for substance use policies, including those for harm reduction, among the general public and policy influencers is a fundamental step to map the current policy landscape and leverage policy opportunities. Yet, this is a knowledge gap in Canada. Our paper identifies the level of support for substance use policies in two provinces in Canada and describes how the level of support is associated with intrusiveness and sociodemographic variables.
Data came from the 2019 Chronic Disease Prevention Survey. The representative sample included members of the general public (Alberta n = 1648, Manitoba n = 1770) as well as policy influencers (Alberta n = 204, Manitoba n = 98). We measured the level of support for 22 public policies concerning substance use through a 4-point Likert-scale. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics Intervention Ladder framework was applied to assess intrusiveness. We used cumulative link models to run ordinal regressions for identification of explanatory sociodemographic variables.
Overall, there was generally strong support for the policies assessed. The general public in Manitoba was significantly more supportive of policies than its Alberta counterpart. Some differences were found between provinces and samples. For certain substance use policies, there was stronger support among women than men and among those with higher education than those with less education.
The results highlight areas where efforts are needed to increase support from both policy influencers and general public for adoption, implementation, and scaling of substance use policies. Socio-demographic variables related to support for substance use policies may be useful in informing strategies such as knowledge mobilization to advance the policy landscape in Western Canada.
审查公众和政策影响者对药物使用政策（包括减少伤害政策）的支持，是了解当前政策格局并利用政策机会的基本步骤。然而，这是加拿大的一个知识空白。我们的论文确定了加拿大两个省份对药物使用政策的支持程度，并描述了支持程度与侵扰性和社会人口变量的关系。
数据来自 2019 年慢性疾病预防调查。代表性样本包括公众（艾伯塔省 n=1648，马尼托巴省 n=1770）和政策影响者（艾伯塔省 n=204，马尼托巴省 n=98）。我们通过 4 点李克特量表衡量了 22 项与药物使用相关的公共政策的支持程度。纳菲尔德生物伦理学干预阶梯框架用于评估侵扰性。我们使用累积链接模型对有序回归进行识别，以确定解释性社会人口变量。
总体而言，对评估的政策普遍有强烈的支持。马尼托巴省的公众比艾伯塔省的公众更支持这些政策。在各省和样本之间发现了一些差异。对于某些药物使用政策，女性比男性、受教育程度较高的人比受教育程度较低的人更支持这些政策。
结果突出了需要努力增加政策影响者和公众对药物使用政策的支持的领域，以便采用、实施和扩大这些政策。与药物使用政策支持相关的社会人口变量可能有助于为知识动员等战略提供信息，以推动加拿大西部的政策格局。
