3 million reaching 130,000: What’s next in syringe access funding?

Throughout the United States and the world, people inject heroin and other drugs to get high. People who inject drugs are at risk for HIV, hepatitis, and a range of other potential harms, including the possibility of overdose.  The U.S. CDC calculates that over 5,000 people who inject drugs are newly diagnosed each year with HIV.

Philanthropic funders invest approximately $3 million each year to support syringe access at more than 150 organizations around the United States.  As just one component of harm reduction efforts, syringe access refers to the work of getting clean injection equipment to people who otherwise would share contaminated syringes, while also advocating to improve syringe access through pharmacies and reduce syringe-related arrests and police harassment of people. Syringe access services are usually provided with other services to help people with addiction and related social, economic, legal, and health issues. Leading funders of syringe access include the partners of the Syringe Access Fund — AIDS United, Elton John AIDS Foundation, Ford Foundation, Levi Strauss Foundation, and Open Society Foundations — as well as amfAR, Broadway Cares, Comer Foundation, and M.A.C AIDS Fund.

Syringe access funding has yielded impressive successes: Approximately 130,000 people are now reached every year with clean syringes and related harm reduction services, and many of these people’s lives have been measurably improved.

But the landscape is changing. As we’ve seen most recently in Indiana, heroin use and other injection drug use is increasing in many parts of rural, suburban and urban America and across all demographics, including young people in their teens and twenties.

This one-hour webinar provides an update about syringe access philanthropy and directions for future grant making.

Presenters include:

• Jennifer Sherwood of the amfAR Public Policy Office will provide an overview of the latest data about injection drug use, related harms such as HIV and hepatitis, and the surveyed needs and activities of over 150 syringe access programs
• Vignetta Charles of AIDS United will provide an update about the upcoming grants cycle of the Syringe Access Fund, and an overview of what that fund has achieved since its creation in 2004.
• Alisa Solberg of the North American Syringe Exchange Network will describe NASEN micro-grants, loans, fiscal agency, and bulk purchasing; all efforts to support the smallest, largest, and least public syringe access organizations.

Listen to the recording here.