Browse our current projects.
The PATH project is a short term mixed methods study focused on youth experiencing homelessness, substance use and/or mental health challenges in Toronto. This project aims to empower youth to capture their story through photos. Exploring a deeper understanding of barriers and facilitators of accessing services, to develop strategies to support improved health and wellbeing.
The T-DOT (Toronto Disparities, Overdose and Treatment) study is an ongoing prospective cohort of people who use drugs in Toronto that was started in 2018 (formerly OiSIS). T-DOT aims to evaluate harm reduction hubs, including supervised consumption sites (SCS), drug checking services, opioid agonist therapies (OAT) and the broader continuum of care for substance related issues on participant health, behavioural and social outcomes.
The CDPE is leading a study to evaluate the impact of safer opioid supply programs in Toronto, Ontario.
The CDPE’s smartphone-based portable drug checking device was one of three finalists for Health Canada’s drug checking technology challenge.
The Policy Impact Unit works in partnership with drug policy stakeholders – including people who use drugs, affected communities, civil society, and policymakers – to support the development of evidence- and rights-based drug policies in Canada and around the globe.
PRIMER is a multi-country study on the impact of different interventions in preventing people who use drugs from initiating others into injection drug use.
The CDPE is synthesizing the evidence on the effectiveness of drug policies and interventions to reduce drug-related harms.
The CDPE is leading a rapid assessment of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on people who inject drugs in Toronto.
The CDPE has conducted an international cross comparison of illegal drug policies to create an online tool – the Drug Policy Metrics Map – to demonstrate the alignment and gaps between the metrics that countries use to assess the success of their drug policy and the actual drug policy-related outcomes they experience.
The pilot for Toronto’s Drug Checking Service, which checked and publicly reported on more than 10,000 samples between October 10, 2019, and June 30, 2023, was coordinated by the CDPE. While Toronto’s Drug Checking Service now operates from its own unit within MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael’s Hospital, a site of Unity Health Toronto, the CDPE continues to work collaboratively with and conduct scientific research on the program.