What is an integrated harm reduction service?
In this report, we define an integrated harm reduction service as a site or organisation that provides one or more ‘traditional’ harm reduction services (such as opioid agonist therapy or a needle and syringe programme) alongside other health and social services. In doing so, they ensure that a wide range of services are available and accessible to their clients.
A person’s health is multifaceted and interconnected. In order for any service to genuinely empower people to improve their health, it needs to recognise the various factors that contribute to it. Integrating health and social services enables these services to be responsive to the needs of their clients.
Where health and social services are disparate and disconnected, they can only address particular symptoms or conditions of a person’s health. On the other hand, integrated services are capable of addressing a person’s health in a broader context. This ‘biosocial’ approach to health acknowledges that different health and social issues are interconnected and need to be addressed holistically.
This can range from biomedical knowledge about the interaction between certain medications, to acknowledging the impacts of discrimination, marginalisation and criminalisation on a person’s ability to access good health. A failure to recognise any one factor in a person’s health can dramatically impact the ability to address other areas. For harm reduction, this means moving beyond the narrow frame of preventing and treating infections and overdoses through biomedical and biobehavioural interventions.
