Dr. Bernie Pauly
About Bernie
Dr. Bernie Pauly is a professor in the UVic School of Nursing, a scientist with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (formerly CARBC), a member of the Renewal of Public Health Services Research Team, and a priority lead for the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. The primary focus of her research is reducing health inequities associated with substance use, poverty, and homelessness.
She has conducted research related to
- enhancing health equity in public health programs that aim to prevent the harms of substance use,
- increasing access to primary health care services for people who are homeless and using substances,
- implementation of harm reduction services,
- effectiveness of transitional programs for people who are recovering from homelessness and substance use,
- inclusion of people who use drugs in policy making and research activities, and
- culturally safe hospital care for people who use drugs.
She led the development of policy papers on illicit drug use and harm reduction for the Canadian Nurses Association, and on housing and harm reduction for the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness. Currently, she is a lead on the Equity Lens in Public Health Program of Research (ELPH) and evaluating the effectiveness of Managed Alcohol Programs (MAP).
Dr. Pauly is a research collaborator with the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness, SOLID (Society of Living Illicit Drug Users), and Victoria Cool Aid Society. She is the recipient of various awards and recognitions, including a BC Community Achievement Award (2016), the Island Health Research Scholar in Residence Award (2016-2018 term), a UVic Provost's Community Engaged Scholar Award (2014), a UVic Community Leadership Award (2011), and is an Honorary Citizen of Victoria (2011).
Videos of Bernie
Projects
- 2016 Greater Victoria unsheltered and sheltered point-in-time count substance use survey
- A mixed methods evaluation of safer supply initiatives to reduce illicit drug overdose in BC
- An evaluation of the impact of the Sudbury Managed Alcohol Program
- An evaluation of the Kwae Kii Win Centre alcohol management program, Thunder Bay, Ontario
- An Indigenous equity lens for public health
- A Scoping Review and Developing a Continuum of Safer Supply Models
- A study of unintended consequences of increased minimum alcohol prices in a population of street involved alcohol dependent drinkers
- BC Co/Lab
- Cannabis Substitution of Alcohol as a Component of Managed Alcohol Programs: Pilot Intervention and Evaluation
- CASH: Evaluation of centralized access to housing and supports for people experiencing homelessness
- Closing the gaps on HIV and Hepatitis C prevention, treatment and care: Lessons learned from safe supply programs and supervised consumption services
- Decolonizing and Reorienting Health Systems Towards Health Equity: The xaȼqanaǂ ʔitkiniǂ (Many Ways of Working on the Same Thing) Research project
- Disseminating drug checking results in response to the overdose crisis
- Drug checking: Engaged research on implementations in response to overdose
- Drug checking: Enhancing scalability to effect systems change
- Equity lens in public health (ELPH) reducing health inequities: The contribution of core public health services in BC
- Evaluation of the Victoria SAFER program
- Feasibility check: Expansion of drug checking to reach people who use alone and reduce overdose in private residences
- From research to practice: addressing the gaps in entry-to-practice HIV nursing competencies in Canada
- Managed alcohol and cannabis substitution: A feasibility study
- P2P: Peer 2 Peer Support
- Perspectives of People who use Drugs on Safer Supply: A concept mapping study
- Pilot evaluation of a BC managed alcohol program
- Preventing and reducing harms of substance use in homeless shelter programs
- Provincial peer network evaluation
- Realizing the Right to Housing: The Housing Justice Project
- Reducing alcohol-related harm for people experiencing homelessness and housing instability during COVID19: A Vancouver Island case study
- Reducing Stigma in Primary Care
- Strengthening the foundation of the home: Developing staff wellness strategies in Indigenous alcohol harm reduction services
- Supporting successful implementation of public health interventions: a realist synthesis
- The Canadian Managed Alcohol Program Studies (CMAPS)
- The role of transitional housing in health and recovery from homelessness, poor health and substance use
- Working together: evaluating an integrated model of care for people experiencing homelessness and substance use problems
- Youth Experiences Project: Police discretion with youth who use illicit substances
Publications
- "There is a Place”: impacts of managed alcohol programs for people experiencing severe alcohol dependence and homelessness
- A Brief on Methodology: Using Proximity Analysis to Study the Impact of Substance Use Services On Local Neighborhoods
- A concept mapping study of service user design of safer supply as an alternative to the illicit drug market
- A Cost-Benefit Analysis of a Canadian Managed Alcohol Program
- Addressing health inequities through social inclusion: The role of community organizations
- Advancing patient-centered care for structurally vulnerable drug-using populations: a qualitative study of the perspectives of people who use drugs regarding the potential integration of harm reduction interventions into hospitals
- Applicability of a national strategy for patient-oriented research to people who use(d) substances: a Canadian experience
- Approaches to evaluation of homelessness interventions
- A Public Health Guide to Developing a Community Overdose Response Plan
- Breaking the cycle of survival drinking: insights from a non-residential, peer-initiated and peer-run managed alcohol program
- Canadian harm reduction policies: A comparative content analysis of provincial and territorial documents, 2000–2015
- Canadian Operational Guidance: Managed Alcohol Programs
- Challenging health inequities: Enacting social justice in nursing practice
- Close to the street: Nursing care for people marginalized by homelessness and substance use
- Community dental clinics in British Columbia, Canada: Examining the potential as health equity interventions
- Community managed alcohol programs in Canada: Overview of key dimensions and implementation
- Counting the cold ones: A comparison of methods measuring total alcohol consumption of managed alcohol program participants
- Creating culturally safe care in hospital settings for people who use(d) illicit drugs (PDF 675kb)
- Critical considerations for the practical utility of health equity tools: a concept mapping study
- Death is a social justice issue: Perspectives on equity-informed palliative care
- Direct observation as evidence
- Disrupting Standard Mode: A Big Picture Story of Family Inclusion in Substance Use Services
- Disruption as opportunity: Impacts of an organizational health equity intervention in primary care clinics
- Does managing the consumption of people with severe alcohol dependence reduce harm? A comparison of participants in six Canadian managed alcohol programs with locally recruited controls
- Doing community-based research during dual public health emergencies (COVID and overdose)
- Do managed alcohol programs change patterns of alcohol consumption and reduce related harm? A pilot study
- Equity in public health standards: A qualitative document analysis of policies from two Canadian provinces
- Ethics and Canadian health care
- Evaluating Effectiveness of Alcohol Harm Reduction and Housing Instability (PPT) (PDF 1mb)
- Evaluation of a managed alcohol program in Vancouver, BC: Early findings and reflections on alcohol harm reduction
- Evaluation of risk mitigation measures for people with substance use disorders to address the dual public health crises of COVID-19 and overdose in British Columbia: a mixed-method study protocol
- Every Washroom: De facto consumption sites in the epicenter of an overdose public health emergency
- Everywhere and for everyone: proportionate universalism as a framework for equitable access to community drug checking
- Evidence brief: Harm reduction implementation framework (HRIF)
- Evidence Brief: Needle and Syringe Exchange Programs
- Evidence Brief: Supervised Consumption Sites are Necessary Public Health Services
- Facing homelessness: Evaluating systemic responses to homelessness
- Facing homelessness: Greater Victoria Report on Housing & Supports 2012/13
- Facing homelessness data supplement for 2012/13 report on housing and supports
- Factors associated with 60-day adherence to “safer supply” opioids prescribed under British Columbia's interim clinical guidance for health care providers to support people who use drugs during COVID-19 and the ongoing overdose emergency
- Factors Associated with Nonfatal Overdose During a Public Health Emergency
- Factors associated with public injection and nonfatal overdose among people who inject drugs in street-based settings
- Fading vision: Knowledge translation in the implementation of public health policy intervention
- Finding safety: A pilot study of Managed Alcohol Program participants' perceptions of housing and quality of life
- Framing the issues: Moral distress in healthcare
- From one ally to another: Pratice guidelines to better include people who use drugs at your decision-making tables
- Harm reduction and currently illegal drugs: Implications for nursing policy, practice, research and education
- Harm reduction in name, but not substance: a comparative analysis of current Canadian provincial and territorial policy frameworks
- Harm reduction through a social justice lens- Homeless Hub research summary series
- Health equity-oriented approaches to inform responses to opioid overdoses: a scoping review protocol
- Health equity tools
- Homelessness: What are we talking about and what do we know
- Homelessness: What are we talking about and what do we know?
- Homelessness outcome reporting normative framework: Systems- level evaluation of progress in ending homelessness
- Hospitals, clinics, and palliative care units: Place-based experiences of formal healthcare settings by people experiencing structural vulnerability at the end-of-life
- Housing and harm reduction: A policy framework for Greater Victoria (PDF 975kb)
- Housing and harm reduction: What is the role of harm reduction in addressing homelessness?
- How do people with homelessness and alcohol dependence cope when alcohol is unaffordable? A comparison of residents of Canadian managed alcohol programs and locally recruited controls
- How Equity-Oriented Health Care Affects Health: Key Mechanisms and Implications for Primary Health Care Practice and Polic
- Hungry and Homeless in Victoria: Fitting the pieces together, Greater Victoria report on housing and supports 2011
- Impact: A case study examining the closure of a large urban fixed site needle exchange in Canada
- Impact of overdose prevention sites during a public health emergency in Victoria, Canada
- Implementing an integrated multi‐technology platform for drug checking: Social, scientific, and technological considerations
- Including people who experience homelessness: A scoping review of the literature
- Intersectionality, social justice and influencing policy
- Investigating the need for alcohol harm reduction and managed alcohol programs for people experiencing homelessness and alcohol use disorders in Scotland
- Is there a place for harm reduction in our response to homelessness?
- Legalization of Cannabis in Canada: Implementation strategies and public health
- Managed Alcohol Programs: An Innovative and Evidence-Based Solution for Adults with Severe Alcohol Use Disorder Who Are Experiencing Homelessness
- Managed alcohol programs: Is it time for a more radical approach to reduce harms for people experiencing homelessness and alcohol use disorders?
- Managed alcohol programs in the context of Housing First
- Moral distress: Tensions as a spring board for action
- Navigating conflicting value systems: a grounded theory of the process of public health equity work in the context of mental health promotion and prevention of harms of substance use
- Needle exchange as a safe haven in an unsafe world
- No Vacancy: Affordability & Homelessness in Vancouver
- One night only: Report of those staying in temporary accommodation in Greater Victoria: Facility count 2014
- On the outside looking in: Finding a place for managed alcohol programs in the harm reduction movement
- Organizational support for frontline harm reduction and systems navigation work among workers with living and lived experience: qualitative findings from British Columbia, Canada
- Our theoretical landscape: Complimentary approaches to health care ethics
- Patterns of homelessness in Greater Victoria
- Perceived harms and harm reduction strategies among people who drink non-beverage alcohol: Community-based qualitative research in Vancouver, Canada
- Practice brief: Implementing the Victoria SAFER Initiative
- Practice Brief: Infrastructure for Harm Reduction in Residential and Hotel Settings
- Providing a safe place: Adopting a cultural safety perspective in the care of Aboriginal women living with HIV/AIDS
- Quiet crisis: Homelessness and at-risk in Greater Victoria (PDF 2mb)
- Reducing health inequities: The contribution of core public health services in BC
- Scale up of Managed Alcohol Programs
- Searching for ethical leadership in nursing
- Sheltering risks: Implementation of harm reduction in homeless shelters during an overdose emergency
- Situational Analysis for Complex Systems: Methodological Development in Public Health Research
- Sowing a Seed of Safety: Providing Culturally Safe Care in Acute Care Settings for People who use Drugs
- Strategies to end homelessness: Current approaches to evaluation
- Substance Use Education in Canadian Nursing Programs: A Student Survey
- Supporting successful implementation of public health interventions: Protocol for a realist synthesis
- Take me to my leader: The importance of ethical leadership among formal nurse leaders
- Taking a leap of faith: Meaningful participation of people with experiences of homelessness in solutions to address homelessness
- The Cost of Caring: Compassion Fatigue among Peer Overdose Response Workers in British Columbia
- The cycle of impossibility: Pathways into and out of family homelessness
- The implementation of overdose prevention sites as a novel and nimble response during an illegal drug overdose public health emergency
- The multiple and intersecting stigmas of homelessness
- The North American opioid crisis: evidence and nuance on prescribed safer supply
- The potential impacts of community drug checking within the overdose crisis: qualitative study exploring the perspective of prospective service users
- Toward Cultural Safety: Nurse and Patient Percepitons of Illicit Substance Use in a Hospitalized Setting
- Towards alcohol harm reduction and housing stability: Preliminary findings of Thunder Bay managed alcohol programs (PDF 645kb)
- Trajectories of Alcohol Use and Related Harms for Managed Alcohol Program Participants over 12 Months Compared with Local Controls: A Quasi-Experimental Study
- Translating the lived experience of illicit drinkers into program guidance for cannabis substitution: Experiences from the Canadian Managed Alcohol Program Study
- Turning a blind eye: implementation of harm reduction in a transitional programme setting
- Values are not enough: qualitative study identifying critical elements for prioritization of health equity in health systems
- Victoria Cool Aid Society Community Health Centre: Social, political, and historical context
- Vulnerable populations and nursing: Vulnerability as a health equity concern
- Well if you don’t like it, you can leave….
- What is harm reduction?
- What is needed for implementing drug checking services in the context of the overdose crisis? A qualitative study to explore perspectives of potential service users
- Where’s the CASH (Centralized Access to Supported Housing)?: Evaluation of a Single Point of Access to Supported Housing
- Where’s the CASH (Centralized Access to Supported Housing)? Reflections on the evaluation of a single point of access to supported housing in Victoria, BC
- Where’s the Housing? Housing and Income Outcomes of a Transitional Program to End Homelessness
- Working and waiting: Homeless drinkers responses to less affordable alcohol
- Working within the landscape: Ethics in practice
- Young People Who Use Drugs Views Toward the Power and Authority of Police Officers
- ‘It’s like a safety haven’: considerations for the implementation of managed alcohol programs in Scotland
- ‘Peer’ work as precarious: A qualitative study of work conditions and experiences of people who use drugs engaged in harm reduction work
- ‘We are the first responders’: overdose response experiences and perspectives among peers in British Columbia
- “Accidental Intimacies”: Reconsidering Bodily Encounters Between Police and Young People Who Use Drugs
- “If I knew I could get that every hour instead of alcohol, I would take the cannabis”: need and feasibility of cannabis substitution implementation in Canadian managed alcohol programs
- “I have such a hard time hitting myself, I thought it’d be easier”: perspectives of hospitalized patients on injecting drugs into vascular access devices
- “It's like super structural” – Overdose experiences of youth who use drugs and police in three non-metropolitan cities across British Columbia
- “Just too busy living in the moment and surviving”: barriers to accessing health care for structurally vulnerable populations at end-of-life
- “The health equity curse”: ethical tensions in promoting health equity
- “There are solutions and I think we're still working in the problem”: The limitations of decriminalization under the good Samaritan drug overdose act and lessons from an evaluation in British Columbia, Canada