Search results

While there is increasing interest in implementing drug checking within overdose prevention, we must also consider how to scale-up these responses so that they have significant reach and impact for people navigating the unpredictable and increasingly complex drug supplies linked to overdose. The purpose of this paper is to present a distributed model of community drug checking that addresses multiple barriers to increasing the reach of drug checking as a response to the illicit drug overdose crisis.

A detailed description of the key components of a distributed model of community drug checking is provided. This includes an integrated software platform that links a multi-instrument, multi-site service design with online service options, a foundational database that provides storage and reporting functions and a community of practice to facilitate engagement and capacity building.

The distributed model diminishes the need for technicians at multiple sites while still providing point-of-care results with local harm reduction engagement and access to confirmatory testing online and in localized reporting. It also reduces the need for training in the technical components of drug checking (e.g. interpreting spectra) for harm reduction workers. Moreover, its real-time reporting capability keeps communities informed about the crisis. Sites are additionally supported by a community of practice.

This paper presents innovations in drug checking technologies and service design that attempt to overcome current financial and technical barriers towards scaling-up services to a more equitable and impactful level and effectively linking multiple urban and rural communities to report concentration levels for substances most linked to overdose.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an alternative framework that will assist in understanding the adoption of digital food shopping. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has exacerbated the demand for digital shopping, but the adoption of digital shopping for food has not accelerated as fast as in other product categories. This study considered the role of socio-cultural factors to understand the reason for slow adoption of digital technology to access food. A cultural framework that can be used to investigate socio-cultural factors in this context was lacking, however, this paper provides a discussion of social and cultural factors and developed measurement scales to assist in understanding cultural change acceptance in consumers' adoption of digital technology to purchase food.

Using Hayes' process analysis, this paper investigated how cultural acceptance – mediated by consumer affection and appeal and measuring the moderated effects of digital trust (DT) – determined the eventual impact on consumer intention to adopt digital food retailing. This paper also considered moderated mediation with parallel mediations (consumer affection and appeal, digital convenience (DC) and consumer digital readiness) interacting with DT and consumer learning.

The authors found that cultural acceptance of digital technology (CADT) is an antecedent to the adoption of digital shopping for food, but this is also mediated by consumers' appeal and affection for digital technology and consumers' digital readiness.

This study also indicates that DT influences consumer appeal and affection (CAA), especially amongst female consumers.

The paper represents an empirical investigation of a new conceptual framework that considers socio-cultural factors to understand consumers' use of digital technology in food shopping which has been an existing knowledge gap in current literature.