Harm Reduction

Abstract

manner. Harm reduction is a human-centered, pragmatic approach to address complex public health and safety issues—including substance use, mental illness, sex work, and poverty—within the context of the current societal realities of racial and gender inequity, economic injustice, mass incarceration, and drug prohibition. A harm reduction approach recognizes that marginalized people and communities are routinely targeted and criminalized, and that there are significant barriers, both structural and personal, that limit access to resources and impede behavior change.