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. 2023 Apr 4;100(2):245–254. doi: 10.1007/s11524-023-00717-y

Table 3.

Key public messages

□ New York City is in the middle of an overdose crisis. Our friends, neighbors, colleagues, and family members are dying. OPCs save lives
□ In addition to providing a safe place for people to use drugs, OPCs offer personal hygiene facilities, clean clothes, medical and pharmaceutical services, and connections to health care and social services. They are harm reduction hubs that provide connections to vital resources
□ The OPCs are being run by established, trusted, skilled, and regulated professionals in programs that already exist and have ongoing relationships with the communities they serve
□ OPCs are a place-based strategy to reduce overdose deaths in neighborhoods with high overdose burdens. They serve people who reside and spend time in the neighborhoods where they are located. There is no evidence that OPCs draw people who use drugs from outside the neighborhood; on the contrary, research from SSPs demonstrates that most people attend harm reduction services within a 10-min walk of where they live [11]
□ These services also improve community outcomes. Evidence from OPCs worldwide shows that they help reduce public drug use, syringe litter, and drug-related crime