Supporting Harm Reduction Programs

About Us

The Supporting Harm Reduction Programs (SHaRP) Team at University of Washington works with harm reduction programs and their partners around the United States to improve services through monitoring and evaluation, research, and more.

SHaRP is housed within the School of Medicine’s Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at UW, a public research university in Seattle, Washington. The SHaRP team is a collaboration of researchers and staff at UW with experience working with and at harm reduction organizations and expertise in harm reduction, research methods, evaluation methods, working with people who use drugs, data collection, analysis, and monitoring and evaluation for syringe services programs (SSPs).

Currently our main work focuses on providing free technical assistance (TA) to SSPs, harm reduction programs, and their partners. We can offer a TA on a variety of harm reduction topics, however our team’s strength is in data, monitoring, and evaluation, including but not limited to point in time surveys, qualitative methods, academic research and statistical analysis, and program management-related experience like grant writing, direct services documentation, and program evaluation. We work with everyone, from new programs building out systems for the first time, established organizations seeking support for re-vamping their existing systems, funders thinking about evaluation, to federal partners looking for support. 

Our Team

Principal Investigator

Sara N. Glick, PhD, MPH

Team

Brittany N. Price, MPH

Elise Healy, MPH

Jeremy Beckford, MPH

Kelly Knudtson, MPH

Lesly-Marie Buer, PhD, MPH

Our Work

Technical Assistance

The SHaRP team offers free technical assistance to harm reduction organizations and their partners, currently through funding from the Opioid Response Network. Our team’s strength is in data, monitoring, and evaluation. The SHaRP team has expertise in a variety of areas, including academic research and statistical analysis, and program management-related experience like grant writing, direct services documentation, and program evaluation. We work with everyone, from new programs building out systems for the first time, established organizations seeking support for re-vamping their existing systems, funders thinking about evaluation, to federal partners looking for support.

The SHaRP team also publishes guidance for good practices in harm reduction monitoring and evaluation. You can find these resources here.

Past Projects

Project NEXUS

Between 2019 and 2023, the SHaRP team was responsible for coordinating and administering the first two stages of the CDC-funded Needle Exchange Utilization Survey (Project NEXUS). Learn more about Project NEXUS here.

Dave Purchase Memorial Survey

In 2022, the SHaRP team conducted and analyzed data from the Dave Purchase Memorial Survey, a nationwide survey of syringe services programs in the United States. Learn more here.

COVID-19 Research

The SHaRP Team conducted research about the impact of COVID-19 on syringe services programs (SSPs) and published the first paper documenting the immediate challenges faced by SSPs early in the pandemic. Learn more here.