Elaine Hyshka

Assistant Professor, School of Public Health University of Alberta

  • Edmonton AB

Professor Hyshka is a health services and policy researcher focused on reducing the health, social, and economic costs of substance misuse.

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Biography

I am an applied health services and policy researcher focused on advancing a public health approach to substance misuse by: (1) evaluating novel interventions designed to reduce the health, social, and economic costs of drug and alcohol misuse; (2) analyzing drug policy; and (3) examining health inequities and service barriers faced by socially marginalized populations experiencing drug or alcohol problems. My research is conducted in partnership with several local, provincial, and national-level service providers, policymakers, and public health advocacy organizations.

Areas of Expertise

Harm Reduction
Opioids
Cannabis
Drug Policy
Substance misuse
Overdose prevention
Supervised consumption services
Illegal drugs
Drug Use and Abuse
Public Health and Health Services
Naloxone
Syringe distribution
Supervised injection sites

Accomplishments

Avenue Magazine’s Top 40 Under 40 Award

2016

Annual award honouring Edmontonians under 40 years of age who are excelling professionally, and making important contributions to the community.

Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship

Doctoral graduate scholarship (2014 - 2015)

Dorothy J Killam Memorial Graduate Prize

2014

Graduate prize recognizing outstanding doctoral students at the University of Alberta.

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Education

University of Alberta

Ph.D.

Health Promotion and Socio-behavioural Sciences

2015

University of Toronto

M.A.

Sociology

2008

University of Toronto

Certification

Collaborative Program in Addiction Studies

2008

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Media Appearances

Four safe injection locations announced for Edmonton's inner core

Edmonton Journal  print

2017-02-22

Elaine Hyshka, public health assistant professor at the University of Alberta, said the team surveyed more than 300 addicts in 2014 and determined most would not travel more than one kilometre to access a site. That means this effort is not going to draw people from across the city, she said.

They choose these health and service centres in the inner core because that’s where the largest number of people who are homeless and addicted currently are, she said. “This is about taking street-based injection out of the alleys and parks.”

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Other opioids killing more people than fentanyl in Edmonton

CBC News  

2016-11-01

"I think everyone had been waiting to see numbers on all the opioids, all the comprehensive numbers, and so I'm quite glad that the chief medical examiner's office was able to compile that data," said Elaine Hyshka, an assistant professor at the University of Alberta's School of Public Health.

"I think that goes a long way to understand the issue and to address it."

Hyshka said having the updated numbers of all opioid deaths will help health-care professionals find different ways to prevent deaths...

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Supervised injection site could come to Edmonton

Edmonton Metro  

2016-10-27

Elaine Hyshka, an assistant professor of public health at the University of Alberta and a member of the group, says the plan isn't for Edmonton to copy Insite, the Vancouver-based supervised consumption site that is currently Canada’s only facility of its kind.

Instead, she says the group is examining an integrated service concept, where there wouldn’t be one site but rather organizations that are already providing help to people who use drugs in Edmonton would simply add supervised consumption to their services.

“This demonstrates a clear commitment to addressing the crisis of overdoses that the province is facing,” Hyshka said...

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Event Appearances

Implementing harm reduction services in acute care: Patient and healthcare provider experiences

Canadian Research Initiative on Substance Misuse Prairie Node Annual General Meeting  Calgary, Canada

2016-06-23

Western Canada’s opioid overdose epidemic: The urgent need for better public health response

2nd National Charting the Future of Drug Policy in Canada conference  Toronto, Canada

2016-06-17

Substance use, health, and homelessness in Edmonton’s inner city

Council of Western Financial, Logistical and Operational Personnel  University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

2015-11-05

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Research Grants

Navigating the ethics of inpatient syringe exchange in a large acute care hospital

Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Catalyst Grant: Ethics

2016 - 2018. Role: Principal Investigator.

A family-centered approach to problematic substance use in Alberta: Perspectives from research, policy and lived experience

Campus Alberta Health Outcomes and Population Health, Networking Funding Opportunity

2017. Role: Lead Applicant.

Health, prevention, and policy environments (HAPPEN): Investigating policy-maker and public knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about the effectiveness of healthy public policies

Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Project Scheme—1st Live Pilot (bridge funding)

2016 - 2017. Role: Co-applicant.

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Articles

Perceived unmet need and barriers to care amongst street‐involved people who use illicit drugs

Drug and Alcohol Review

2016

Most (82%) participants reported unmet need for one or more services during the past year. Odds of reporting one or more unmet needs were elevated amongst participants reporting substantial housing instability (adjusted odds ratio= 2.37; 95% confidence interval 1.19–4.28) and amongst participants meeting criteria for drug dependence (adjusted odds ratio= 1.22; 95% confidence interval 1.03–1.50), even after adjustment for sociodemographic covariates. Structural, rather than motivational barriers were the most ...

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A common public health-oriented policy framework for cannabis, alcohol and tobacco in Canada?

Canadian Journal of Public Health

2015

Support for a public health approach to cannabis policy as an alternative to prohibition and criminalization is gaining momentum. Recent drug policy changes in the United States suggest growing political feasibility for legal regulation of cannabis in other North American jurisdictions. This commentary discusses the outcomes of an interdisciplinary policy meeting with Canadian experts and knowledge users in the area of substance use interventions. The meeting explored possibilities for applying cross- ...

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‘It's more about the heroin’: injection drug users' response to an overdose warning campaign in a Canadian setting

Addiction

2013

Although nearly all participants were aware of the warning, their recollections of the message and the timing of its release were obscured by on-going social interactions within the drug scene focussed on heroin quality. Many injection drug users reported seeking the high potency heroin and nearly all reported no change in overdose risk behaviours. Responses to the warning were shaped by various social, economic and structural forces that interacted with individual behaviour and undermined efforts to promote behavioural change, including sales tactics employed by dealers, poverty, the high cost and shifting quality of available heroin, and risks associated with income-generating activities. Individual-level factors, including emotional suffering, withdrawal, entrenched injecting routines, perceived invincibility and the desire for intense intoxication also undermined risk reduction messages.

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