Lindsey Richardson

Wall Associate

Department/School

Department of Sociology

Faculty

Arts

University

UBC

Geographic Location

Canada
Lindsey Richardson

Lindsey Richardson is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at UBC. Prior to commencing her appointment in 2014, she was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in UBC’s Division of AIDS in the Faculty of Medicine and with the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS.

Lindsey is a medical sociologist specializing in socio-economic determinants of health among people living with or at risk of HIV infection who also use illicit drugs. Her mixed-methods research links observational, intervention and research participation studies in efforts to critically increase understandings of the determinants and consequences of socio-economic security for health among vulnerable populations in urban settings.

Primary Recipient Awards

Lindsey Richardson – Wall Solutions – 2015

Evaluating the impact of alternative income assistance timing on drug-related harm

Principal Investigator(s): Dr. Lindsey Richardson, Department of Sociology, UBC

Partner(s): Mr. Russ Maynard, Harm Reduction Manager; Mr. Kevin Grant, Pigeon Park Savings, PHS Community Services Society

Coordinated monthly social assistance payments, while seeking to alleviate poverty, can have negative and unintended impacts, particularly among people who use illicit drugs (PWUD). Observational research has identified escalations in drug-related harm coinciding with assistance payments, such as overdose, treatment interruption and hospital admissions. This project varies the timing and frequency of social assistance disbursement through Pigeon Park Savings (PPS), a Vancouver-based community bank, and evaluates whether varying social assistance disbursement reduces drug-related harm coinciding with coordinated social assistance. Conducted among 273 PWUD, participants will be allocated for 6 social assistance cycles to a control or one of two intervention arms. Intervention arm participants will receive their social assistance through PPS:

(1) monthly on a day different from government cheque issue; or

(2) semi-monthly on days different from government cheque issue.

The intervention will be evaluated using qualitative and quantitative methods for its impact on drug use and related harms.