Tommi Gaines
University of California-San Diego, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Opioid overdoses hit American Indian and Alaska Native people hardest. They have the highest opioid overdose death rate of any racial or ethnic group in the U.S., and some of Southern California's highest overdose death rates are in areas that include Tribal lands.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
opioid overdose
opioid epidemic
naloxone
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2027
What they work on
- Build a community-based participatory research partnership with Southern California Tribal and community representatives to co-design a culturally appropriate study of naloxone vending machines on Tribal lands.
- Measure the initial reach of overdose prevention vending machines that freely dispense naloxone during their first year on Tribal reservations.
- Describe how the vending machines are implemented on reservations, using the RE-AIM framework, and identify strategies that increase their use.
- Compare statistical and spatial patterns of fatal opioid overdose rates on Tribal reservations with those across San Diego County to gauge the machines' impact.
More about the research
Naloxone is a medicine that can reverse an opioid overdose. In 2023, the Harm Reduction Coalition of San Diego partnered with Southern California Tribes to install overdose prevention vending machines (ODPVMs) that give out naloxone for free. To the team's knowledge, these are the first such machines on Tribal Sovereign Land in the U.S. That makes this a rare chance to study whether, and how, the machines work in Tribal communities.
Why it matters
American Indian communities are losing people to opioid overdose at the highest rates in the country, yet harm-reduction programs on Tribal lands are rarely evaluated. This work could show Tribes and harm-reduction groups what helps people use free naloxone vending machines. It could also show whether the machines are linked to fewer overdose deaths on reservations. That knowledge could guide how such machines are placed and supported in other Tribal Nations.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Delesha Carpenter
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Public Health & Epidemiology
Create a comprehensive ZIP-code measure of naloxone availability, the opioid overdose reversal drug, by combining secret-shopper pharmacy visits, surveys of distribution groups and insurance claims, guided by an advisory board.
Amanda Hunter
Arizona State University Campus Immersion, AZ·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Identify the core elements of Native Spirit, a 13-session culturally grounded after-school program led by traditional knowledge holders for American Indian adolescents.
Monica Skewes
Montana State University, MT·Psychology
Test whether Indigenous Recovery Planning, a culturally adapted Relapse Prevention treatment, increases percent days abstinent among 150 Fort Peck tribal members with substance use disorder, compared with a waitlist control group.
The school
University of California-San Diego: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 637 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.