The Evidence Speaks

The Evidence Speaks (April 2025)

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The Evidence Speaks Series is a recurring feature highlighting the latest in Advancing Health research. This series features summaries of select publications and is designed to keep media and the research community up to date with the Centre’s current research results in the health outcomes field.  

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Eliminating copays for low-income households improves treatment adherence 

Sharma K, Cheng L, Dormuth CR, McGrail KM, Vera MAD, Clement F, McCracken RK, Mamdani M, Law MR. The impact of eliminating out-of-pocket payments for medicines on low-income households: a controlled interrupted time series analysis using linked administrative data from British Columbia. Health Policy. 2025;155:105270. 

 
The Canadian health care system’s prescription financing model relies on out-of-pocket payments for drug expenditure for most drugs. Previous research from Advancing Health’s Dr. Mary de Vera showed that these costs result in millions of patients not adhering to prescription medicines every year, since many households need to consider the tradeoffs of drug expenditures against food, heat, and other essentials. To further examine the impact of copayments, Dr. de Vera joined researchers from UBC, Alberta, and Ontario to analyze the impact of a provincial policy from 2019 that eliminated drug co-payments for households earning less than $13,750 in British Columbia. The study used data from 2017 to 2021, and households with over $45,000 in income — who experienced no changes in public coverage — served as the control group. The researchers compared public prescription drug expenditures, and the number of prescriptions dispensed between the two groups. The research showed that eliminating copayments led to an increase of $3.8 per person per month in public prescription expenditure and an increase in the mean number of prescriptions dispensed in households with incomes below $13,750. The researchers concluded that eliminating copayments appears to be effective at improving access to medicines for lower-income families. 


Strategic placement naloxone kits effectively combat opioid poisonings 

Leung KHB, Grunau BE, Lee MK, Buxton JA, Helmer J, Diepen S van, Christenson J, Chan TCY. Optimizing placement of public-access naloxone kits using geospatial analytics: a modelling study. Canadian Medical Association Journal. 2025;197(10): E258-65.

Over 85,000 people die annually across North America from opioid poisoning. Naloxone is a medication that can reverse an opioid poisoning and in the hands of the public is an effective intervention and saves lives. Metro Vancouver uses three different coverage strategies for public-access naloxone kits: (1) blanket placement at take-home naloxone program locations, (2) blanket placement at chain businesses, pharmacies, and public AEDs, and (3) strategic placement at public transit stations (based on historical poisoning data). Advancing Health’s Drs. Brian Grunau and Jim Christenson and senior statistician May Lee used geospatial data to examine the accessibility and effectiveness of these placement strategies. The researchers examined all opioid poisonings (14,089 incidents) recorded by BC Emergency Health Services between December 2014 and August 2020 in Metro Vancouver. They then determined the number of opioid poisonings within a 3-minute walk of a public naloxone kit.  The team found that blanket placement at over 3,000 take-home locations and businesses, pharmacies, and other locations covered 9408 incidents, while strategic placement of naloxone kits at 1,000 transit stops covered 7506. One in five opioid poisoning incidents were covered by just 10 transit-based locations. The team concluded that the optimal strategy for installing and stocking public naloxone locations is to identify areas where opioid poisonings are concentrated and set up kits at transit stops in those locations. Using this approach, the researchers estimated that this approach would provide better coverage with half the number of kit locations required in comparison to the other approaches.


Access to youth service centres providing mental health services help reduce stigma around mental health 

Ben-David S, Biddell M, Lougheed JP, Vien C, Ortiz R, Kealy D, Turner S, Gawliuk M, Mathias S, Barbic S. Youth Emotional Pathways to Mental Health Services: I Came to Foundry to “Remember What it Feels Like to Cry.” Community Mental Health Journal, 2025. 

Mental health difficulties typically develop during adolescence, yet service utilization rates among youth remain low. Advancing Health’s Dr. Skye Barbic sought to understand the perspectives of Canadian youth accessing mental health services at an integrated youth service centre called Foundry through 41 interviews conducted with youth aged 15–24. Of the 41 participants, 19 percent identified as transgender, non-binary, or Two-Spirit.  The study found that before accessing services, many youths (in particular, boys and men) reported experiencing problems with emotional expression and feeling negative emotions associated with help-seeking.  However, they reported feeling more positive about seeking help after accessing Foundry’s services. The results of the interviews also suggested that the positive experiences they had at Foundry, including the physical environment, quality of services, and welcoming staff and counsellors, helped facilitate this improvement. Finally, the study concluded that developing preventive interventions that explore ways to support emotion regulation and positive emotional development using Foundry and similar integrated youth service centres would be a successful approach to increasing mental health service access and usage. 

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