Robert Mcneil
Biographic Data
| ID | 976342 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert Mcneil |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcneil |
| SIGNATURE | MCNEIL R |
| AFFILIATIONS | British Columbia Centre on Substance Use |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9555-7693 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 83 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 253 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 83 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Displacement and the disruption of drug use patterns and risks
Haunted houses
‘It just doesn't stop’
A qualitative study exploring motives for the transition from injecting to smoking drugs in Vancouver, British Columbia
None of It Turned Out the Way She Wanted, So It Left a Hole in Me
Palliative care is undergoing shifts to identify and respond to social and structural inequities. Caregiving in a palliative context is steeped in assumptions that those who provide care are biologically or legally (biolegal) related, well‐resourced, and able to balance the many demands of work and life with caregiving. As families in the Western world change, people are increasingly looking outside their biolegal families for care. This is commo…
Reimagining subjectivities in place
They talk about it like it's an overdose crisis when in fact it's basically genocide”
Indigenous Peoples who use illicit drugs (IPWUID) are disproportionately represented among toxic drug poisoning deaths in Canada. These drug-related harms are framed by the historical and ongoing trauma related to settler colonialism and are acutely visible in Vancouver, Canada's Downtown Eastside - a low-income neighbourhood that is an epicenter of the drug poisoning crisis and characterized by entrenched poverty, substance use, violence, and ho…
Perceptions of prospective pharmaceutical stimulant substitution treatments among people who use illicit stimulants in Vancouver, Canada
Using drugs alone in single room occupancy housing
I'm just searching to get better
The perspectives of street-involved youth who use drugs regarding the acceptability and feasibility of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis
Street-involved youth who use drugs (YWUD) face an elevated risk of HIV acquisition and represent a key population for HIV prevention initiatives, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). However, little is known regarding the acceptability and feasibility of PrEP uptake and adherence among this multiply-marginalized population. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 24 street-involved YWUD (ages 17-24) to examine their pers…
Women's experiences in injectable opioid agonist treatment programs in Vancouver, Canada
(Re)situating expertise in community-based overdose response
Rethinking urban-rural designations in public health surveillance of the overdose crisis and crafting an agenda for future monitoring
Rurality has served as a key concept in popular and scientific understandings of the US overdose crisis, with White, rural, and low-income areas thought to be most heavily affected. However, we observe that overdose trends have risen nearly uniformly across the urban-rural designations employed in most research, implying that their importance has likely been overstated or incorrectly conceptualized. Nevertheless, urbanicity/rurality does serve as…
We just don’t have the space for it”
It's no foundation, there's no stabilization, you're just scattered
People who use drugs (PWUD) commonly experience housing instability due to intersecting structural vulnerabilities (e.g., drug prohibition, discriminatory housing policies), and prejudicial or illegal evictions are common. In Vancouver, Canada, evictions have proliferated in the Downtown Eastside, a historically low-income neighbourhood with high rates of drug use and housing instability, resulting in many PWUD being evicted into homelessness. Th…
Substance use policy and practice in the Covid-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented natural experiment in drug policy, treatment delivery, and harm reduction strategies by exposing wide variation in public health infrastructures and social safety nets around the world. Using qualitative data including ethnographic methods, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews with people who use drugs (PWUD) and Delphi-method with experts from field sites spanning 13 different countrie…
Characterizing stimulant overdose
A rapid ethnographic study of risk negotiation during the Covid-19 pandemic among unstably housed people who use drugs in Rhode Island
The practice and embodiment of “goofballs”
Mothers Who Use Drugs
Objectives. To identify key gaps in overdose prevention interventions for mothers who use drugs and the paradoxical impact of institutional practices that can increase overdose risk in the context of punitive drug policies and a toxic drug supply. Methods. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 40 women accessing 2 women-only, low-barrier supervised consumption sites in Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, between 2017 and 2019. Ou…
Reducing Drug-Related Harms and Promoting Health Justice Worldwide During and After Covid-19
Implementation of Safe Supply Alternatives During Intersecting Covid-19 and Overdose Health Emergencies in British Columbia, Canada, 2021
Objectives. To explore the implementation and effectiveness of the British Columbia, Canada, risk mitigation guidelines among people who use drugs, focusing on how experiences with the illicit drug supply shaped motivations to seek prescription alternatives and the subsequent impacts on overdose vulnerability. Methods. From February to July 2021, we conducted qualitative interviews with 40 people who use drugs in British Columbia, Canada, and who…
Beyond co-production
The role of cannabis in pain management among people living with HIV who use drugs
Community-based participatory research in a heavily researched inner city neighbourhood
Safer environment interventions
Hospitals as a 'risk environment
Peer worker involvement in low-threshold supervised consumption facilities in the context of an overdose epidemic in Vancouver, Canada
The intersectional risk environment of people who use drugs
Surviving the housing crisis
Navigating identity, territorial stigma, and HIV care services in Vancouver, Canada
Area restrictions, risk, harm, and health care access among people who use drugs in Vancouver, Canada
Negotiating structural vulnerability following regulatory changes to a provincial methadone program in vancouver, canada
It’s Helped Me a Lot, Just Like to Stay Alive”
Addressing Intersecting Housing and Overdose Crises in Vancouver, Canada
And we just have to keep going
It's no foundation, there's no stabilization, you're just scattered
People who use drugs (PWUD) commonly experience housing instability due to intersecting structural vulnerabilities (e.g., drug prohibition, discriminatory housing policies), and prejudicial or illegal evictions are common. In Vancouver, Canada, evictions have proliferated in the Downtown Eastside, a historically low-income neighbourhood with high rates of drug use and housing instability, resulting in many PWUD being evicted into homelessness. Th…
People need them or else they're going to take fentanyl and die
Implementation of Safe Supply Alternatives During Intersecting Covid-19 and Overdose Health Emergencies in British Columbia, Canada, 2021
Objectives. To explore the implementation and effectiveness of the British Columbia, Canada, risk mitigation guidelines among people who use drugs, focusing on how experiences with the illicit drug supply shaped motivations to seek prescription alternatives and the subsequent impacts on overdose vulnerability. Methods. From February to July 2021, we conducted qualitative interviews with 40 people who use drugs in British Columbia, Canada, and who…
(Re)shaping the self
Exploring the Public Health Impacts of Private Security Guards on People Who Use Drugs
Homelessness & Health in Canada
Psychological Services, Centre for Addiction and
Mothers Who Use Drugs
Objectives. To identify key gaps in overdose prevention interventions for mothers who use drugs and the paradoxical impact of institutional practices that can increase overdose risk in the context of punitive drug policies and a toxic drug supply. Methods. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 40 women accessing 2 women-only, low-barrier supervised consumption sites in Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, between 2017 and 2019. Ou…
A Community Responds to the Covid-19 Pandemic
Effective responses to a global pandemic require local action. In the face of a pandemic or similar emergencies, communities of people who use drugs face risks that result from their ongoing drug use, reduced ability to secure treatment for drug use and correlated maladies, lack of access to preventive hygiene, and the realities of homelessness, street-level policing, and criminal justice involvement. Herein, we document the efforts of a coalitio…
A Low-Barrier and Comprehensive Community-Based Harm-Reduction Site in Vancouver, Canada
“The Molson” is a low-barrier, peer-staffed, supervised consumption site located in Vancouver, Canada. In addition to overdose response, this site offers drug checking and a colocated injectable hydromorphone treatment program, and it distributes tablet and liquid hydromorphone to service users at high risk of overdose. Our evaluation suggests benefits of this program in creating service continuums and preventing overdose deaths. From September 2…
A missed opportunity? Cannabis legalization and reparations in Canada
Negotiating space & drug use in emergency shelters with peer witness injection programs within the context of an overdose crisis
Hospitals, clinics, and palliative care units
Reimagining subjectivities in place
Harm reduction services as a point-of-entry to and source of end-of-life care and support for homeless and marginally housed persons who use alcohol and/or illicit drugs
While partnerships between harm reduction programs and end-of-life care services are identified as one way to improve access, it is noted that more comprehensive harm reduction services might be needed in end-of-life care settings if they are to engage this underserved population
People Knew They Could Come Here to Get Help”
Negotiating place and gendered violence in Canada's largest open drug scene
Homelessness & Health in Canada
Psychological Services, Centre for Addiction and
Safer environment interventions
Hospitals as a 'risk environment
We need somewhere to smoke crack”
Area restrictions, risk, harm, and health care access among people who use drugs in Vancouver, Canada
Exploring the Public Health Impacts of Private Security Guards on People Who Use Drugs
Negotiating structural vulnerability following regulatory changes to a provincial methadone program in vancouver, canada
Residential Eviction and Risk of Detectable Plasma HIV-1 RNA Viral Load Among HIV-Positive People Who Use Drugs
Antiretroviral Therapy Interruption Among HIV Postive People Who Use Drugs in a Setting with a Community-Wide HIV Treatment-as-Prevention Initiative
Encounters with private security guards among people who inject drugs in a Canadian setting
Communicating risk in the context of methadone formulation changes
Navigating identity, territorial stigma, and HIV care services in Vancouver, Canada
Supervised injection facilities in Canada
Canada has long contended with harms arising from injection drug use. In response to epidemics of HIV infection and overdose in Vancouver in the mid-1990s, a range of actors advocated for the creation of supervised injection facilities (SIFs), and after several unsanctioned SIFs operated briefly and closed, Canada's first sanctioned SIF opened in 2003. However, while a large body of evidence highlights the successes of this SIF in reducing the he…
‘Because I’ve been extremely careful’
In this article, we examine how injection drug users who do not attribute their HIV infection to engaging in HIV risk behaviours take up and critique discourses of individual responsibility and citizenship relating to HIV risk and HIV prevention. We draw on data from a study in Vancouver, Canada (2006–2009) in which we interviewed individuals living with HIV who had a history of injection drug use. In this paper, we focus on six cases studies of …
We’re giving you something so we get something in return”
Residential eviction and exposure to violence among people who inject drugs in Vancouver, Canada
Unintended impacts of regulatory changes to British Columbia Methadone Maintenance Program on addiction and HIV-related outcomes
Community-based participatory research in a heavily researched inner city neighbourhood
Evaluation of a fentanyl drug checking service for clients of a supervised injection facility, Vancouver, Canada
BACKGROUND: British Columbia, Canada, is experiencing a public health emergency related to opioid overdoses driven by consumption of street drugs contaminated with illicitly manufactured fentanyl. This cross-sectional study evaluates a drug checking intervention for the clients of a supervised injection facility (SIF) in Vancouver. METHODS: Insite is a facility offering supervised injection services in Vancouver's Downtown East Side, a community …
Gendered violence and overdose prevention sites
Transitions in income generation among marginalized people who use drugs
The perspectives of structurally vulnerable people who use drugs on volunteer stipends and work experiences provided through a drug user organization
HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk (70 works) · Medicine (67 works) · Opioid Use Disorder Treatment (50 works) · Sociology (50 works) · Psychology (45 works) · Public health (40 works) · Nursing (39 works) · Psychiatry (34 works) · Political science (33 works) · Harm reduction (31 works)