Considerations For the Epidemiological Evaluation of Hyperlocal Interventions: a Case Study of the New York City Overdose Prevention Centers.

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Social Science & Medicine (1982), 2025, v. 378: Considerations For the Epidemiological Evaluation of Hyperlocal Interventions: a Case Study of the New York City Overdose Prevention Centers.
• Journal Article:
  Social Science & Medicine (1982)
• Personal Author:
  Allen, Bennett ; Moore, Brandi ; Jent, Victoria A. ; Goedel, William C. ; Israel, Khadija ; Collins, Alexandra B. ; Marshall, Brandon D. L. ; Cerdá, Magdalena
• Description:
  To meet the needs of diverse communities, public health authorities are increasingly reliant on hyperlocal interventions targeting specific health issues and distinct populations. To facilitate epidemiological evaluation of hyperlocal interventions on community-level outcomes, we developed a framework of six practice-based considerations for researchers: spatial zone of impact, temporal resolution of impact, outcome of interest, definition of a plausible comparison group, micro vs. macro impacts, and practitioner engagement. We applied this framework to a case study of an impact evaluation of the New York City (NYC) overdose prevention centers (OPCs) on neighborhood-level drug-related arrests. We used drug arrest data from NYC from January 1, 2014, to September 30, 2023 and US Census data to conduct synthetic control modeling, comparing pre- and post-OPC arrests in the neighborhoods surrounding the two NYC OPCs (East Harlem and Washington Heights). We conducted sensitivity analyses to validate our results and compare our findings with those from a prior published study. Our findings indicate no significant change in drug-related arrests following the OPC openings. The mean absolute differences in daily drug-related arrests between the OPCs and their synthetic controls were 0.63 (p = 0.19) in East Harlem and 0.14 (p = 0.22) in Washington Heights. Sensitivity analyses corroborated our main results. Overall, findings demonstrate how our framework can be used to guide future epidemiological evaluations of diverse, hyperlocal public health interventions.
• Content Notes:
  Author manuscript
• Subjects:
  • Humans
  • Drug Overdose
  • Residence Characteristics
  • Organizational Case Studies
• Keywords:
  • epidemiology
  • overdose prevention center
  • drug
  • arrest
  • New York City
  • program evaluation
• Source:
  Social Science & Medicine (1982), 2025, v. 378
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118156
• ISSN:
  0277-9536 ; 1873-5347
• Pubmed ID:
  40349434
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC12171985
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  K01 CE003586/CE/NCIPC CDC HHSUnited States/ ; K01CE003586/ACL/ACL HHSUnited States/ ; R01 DA058277/DA/NIDA NIH HHSUnited States/
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  New York City
• Pages in Document:
  118156 (30 pdf pages)
• Volume:
  378
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/261420/cdc_261420_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.48 MB]
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:9d56eab2ce315ac620ab390bb182f8895a0b6c3d6c9e2474f9c2ee9a528bed84b7bc4e564dba2eacf6b322f3bbd9d0f43210bb5e55d38dc9237f7d2dfff56ba1