Research Projects
DTES RESEARCH
ACCESS PORTAL
Here are some research projects that have happened or are happening in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES). Here is some information about the DTES neighbourhood and its history.
All of the people leading research projects on this page have volunteered to share their information with us, and many have provided more information about themselves and their research in the directory. We hope this page will highlight university research that is happening in the DTES, make it easier for researchers and community members to connect with each other, and facilitate community-university collaborations.
If you have questions about contacting people listed in the project descriptions below, please email mrai.info@ubc.ca.
If you would like to add your research project to this page, please email mrai.info@ubc.ca.
As this page is a new feature of the Research Access Portal we also welcome your ideas about how we can make it relevant to you and the people you work with; please email us your thoughts at mrai.info@ubc.ca.
Project Lead: Lyana Patrick
This case study explored what urban Indigenous community planning looks like at the intersection of health and justice in the work of one Indigenous o...
Project Lead: Penelope Gurstein
Other: Kathleen Heggie
This project investigated how programming in Oppenheimer Park (Vancouver, BC) contributes to safety and social cohesion in and around the area, and ho...
Project Lead: Lindsey Richardson
Prior research identifies substantial increases in drug use and drug-related harm as well as challenges to effective service provision associated with...
Project Lead: Skye Barbic
The overall objective of this project was to increase access to meaningful employment for unemployed British Columbians living in the Downtown Eastsid...
Project Lead: Paxton Bach
Crystal meth is a powerful stimulant that is increasingly implicated in the ongoing overdose crisis in BC. One class of medications that has previousl...
Project Lead: Seonaid Nolan
This project will assemble a working group of approximately 24 key service providers for patients with a substance use disorder (SUD) at St. Paul's Ho...
Project Lead: Voor Urban Labs
Voor Urban Labs researched the community economic impact of the social enterprise sector in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in 2019 and 2020. The res...
Project Lead: Kelsey Timler
Other: Kate McLeod and others
People who have been incarcerated face unfair health and social outcomes and barriers to wellbeing. These barriers are made worse for Indigenous Peopl...
Project Lead: Danya Fast
The Treatment Trajectories Study explores street-involved young people’s substance use treatment trajectories and outcomes in the context of Vancouver...
Project Lead: Jade Boyd
The project aims to generate evidence to strengthen interventions and strategies to decrease overdose-related harms, including death, among women who ...
Project Lead: Sofia Bartlett
People who use drugs (PWUD) who are living with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection are 1.84 times more likely to start Direct Acting Antiviral ...
Project Lead: Sofia Bartlett
To address barriers to Sexually Transmitted and Blood-Borne Infection (STBBI) testing and care in prisons, BC Centre for Disease Control and BC Mental...
Project Lead: Jeffrey Morgan
Other: Seonaid Nolan
The Outcomes for Patients Accessing Addiction Care (OPAC) study is a five-year study that is focused on improving British Columbia’s addiction treatme...
Project Lead: Paxton Bach
Crystal methamphetamine use is associated with a wide array of physical and social harms. In spite of this, its prevalence is rising in many parts of ...
Project Lead: Scott Neufeld
Two studies involving people with lived and living experience of stigmatized/criminalized substance use and other intersecting marginalized identities...
Project Lead: Vicky Bungay
This project examines the process and impact of implementing an evidence-informed, strengths-based, trauma and violence informed outreach program with...
Project Lead: Vicky Bungay
A team of researchers, community service leaders and women from the DTES community received funding from the Vancouver Foundation for a three-year com...
Project Lead: Jeanette Steinmann
Cycling continues to grow in popularity in Vancouver, but the needs of people experiencing homelessness and precariously housed people who ride bikes ...
Project Lead: Kate Salters
Other: Rolando Barrios and others
In Canada, current treatments for hepatitis C virus (HCV) are not only very well tolerated oral medications, but lead to actually curing HCV over 95% ...
Project Lead: Lianping Ti
Other: Alison Knill, Research Coordinator
This study intends to evaluate the use and acceptance by people who use drugs (PWUD) of immunoassay test strips and the Bruker ALPHA FTIR spectrometer...
Project Lead: Lindsey Richardson
The Assessing Economic Transitions Study (ASSETS) was a study seeking to learn more about the experience of people who are training or working in the ...
Project Lead: Andrea Krüsi
The overall goals of this project is to better understand how evolving laws and policies, including laws and policing that target sex workers’ clients...
Project Lead: Jenna van Draanen
We are studying the Inhalation Tent program model in partnership with the Overdose Prevention Society to prepare for sharing knowledge about this mode...
Project Lead: Helen Brown
Other: Mo Korchinski
Currently, people leaving prisons face concurrent risks from the COVID-19 pandemic and the overdose public health emergency. The closure or reduction ...
Project Lead: Irwin Oostindie
Developing an aggregated survey of Urban Indigenous policy research and community-engaged studies with representation and engagement from 80 Urban Ind...
Project Lead: M-J Milloy
The ACCESS study is an ongoing research study involving more than 1,000 people living with HIV who use unregulated drugs. The objective of the study i...
Project Lead: M-J Milloy
This study aims to study the uptake and impact of vaccination against the novel coronavirus on the health and wellbeing of people living in the Downto...
Project Lead: Kanna Hayashi
Other: Kora DeBeck
The Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study (VIDUS) is one of the longest-running community-recruited prospective cohort studies of people who inject dru...
Project Lead: Helen Brown
Other: Samantha Young, THJRC Project Coordinator
People who face structural barriers to health and social equity are disproportionately engaged with and impacted by the criminal justice system (CJS)....
Project Lead: Kora DeBeck
Other: Kanna Hayashi
The At-Risk Youth Study (ARYS) is a longitudinal cohort study of >1,000 street-involved youth who use drugs in Vancouver. The cohort began in 2005 and...
Project Lead: Helen Brown
Other: Samantha Young, THJRC Project Coordinator
Incarcerated individuals suffer vast health and social inequities, many of which span generations. In Canada’s colonial context, Indigenous peoples ar...
The Downtown Eastside (DTES) Community Ethics in Cultural Production Project is an initiative led by members of the DTES community with support from D...
Project Lead: Danya Fast
The Care Pathways Study focuses on the experiences of younger youth (ages 14-18) as they simultaneously navigate multiple systems of care and supervis...
Project Lead: Jeffrey Morgan
Other: Tara Taylor and others
The Overdose Prevention Peer Research Assistant (OPPRA) Project is a community-based participatory action research partnership between the Overdose Pr...
Project Lead: Sofia Bartlett
Investigators at the BC Centre for Disease Control, University of British Columbia and BC Mental Health and Substance Use Services launched a BC Provi...
Project Lead: Eisha Lehal
Other: Seonaid Nolan
The period following release from jail is one of increased vulnerability for individuals with an opioid use disorder, as they re-immerse into their co...
Project Lead: Sofia Bartlett
The “Addressing COVID-19 Vaccine concerns among people who are incarcerated” (ADVANCE) study is a participatory 'knowledge to action' project that aim...
Project Lead: Stephanie Allen
Other: Research Project Coordinator: Modupeoluwa Bankole-Longe, Research Coordinator: Amy Booth
Given the lack of data specific to vaccine intentions and personal COVID-19 history among Black communities in BC and the disproportionately higher bu...
Project Lead: Bohdan Nosyk
This project involves developing 'health system performance measures' using data on the healthcare interactions of people with opioid use disorder in ...
Project Lead: Bohdan Nosyk
This project uses advanced statistical methods to develop evidence that can improve the clinical practice of opioid agonist treatment (OAT). The proje...
Project Lead: Kanna Hayashi
This project collected information on patient-reported experiences of health care in the Downtown Eastside in a supplemental questionnaire that was im...
Project Lead: Amanda Slaunwhite and others
We are conducting a mixed-methods evaluation of BC's Risk Mitigation Guidance (RMG), using qualitative, quantitative and implementation science method...
Project Lead: Skye Barbic
Other: Amanda Kwan
'Links to Employment' is a supported employment program operating in Vancouver's downtown and DTES, and community of Vernon. It is based on the model ...
Project Lead: Sofia Bartlett
Test, Link, Call (TLC) Project, launched in Fall 2021, is a collaboration between BCCDC, BCMHSUS, BC Hepatitis Network and Unlocking the Gates (UTG). ...
Project Lead: Melanie Murray
Other: Helene Cote and others
The British Columbia CARMA-CHIWOS Collaboration (BCC3) is a community-based, women-centered, cell-to-society study. Funded by the Canadian Institutes ...
Project Lead: Chris Richardson
The Collaborating Centre for Prison Health and Education, in partnership with the John Howard Society of Canada, has received funding from the Vancouv...
Project Lead: Alysha McFadden
There is a lack of research on decolonizing healthcare practices and whether healthcare and allied-service providers are knowledgeable about how to en...