Alexa Norton

B.A., major in English Literature, minor in Women’s and Gender Studies, University of British Columbia, 2013
M.A. in Social Dimensions of Health, University of Victoria, 2018

Alexa was raised in Treaty 8 territory (Grande Prairie, AB) and moved to Coast Salish territories (Vancouver, BC) in 2010. She is a doctoral student conducting research on the contextual forces that shape the present and future of safe and regulated drugs in Canada (“safer supply”). Alexa is a research associate at the First Nations Health Authority and a research assistant at the BC Centre on Substance Use. Outside of academic work, she conducts program evaluations for non-profit organizations and writes creative non-fiction.

The provision of a safe and regulated supply of drugs is an intervention with the potential to address Canada’s worsening overdose crisis. Prescribers are currently the only authorized individuals in Canada who can provide controlled substances. However, the early rollout of safer supply is raising concerns about the limitations of the medical model to deliver safer supply at a population level. People who use drugs caution that controlled dispensing models risk overburdening clients, and clinicians have raised concerns about the appropriateness of having prescribers deliver a public health intervention. My research responds to calls for action by conducting research with policy and practice implications on the limitations and strengths of the current medical model and of alternate dispensing models.

A qualitative evaluation of a fentanyl patch safer supply program in Vancouver, BC
Perceptions of provider awareness of traditional and cultural treatments among Indigenous people who use unregulated drugs in Vancouver, BC
Just have this come from their prescription pad: the medicalization of safer supply from the perspectives of health planners in BC, Canada
Characterizing Methamphetamine Use Among People Who Use Opioids: A Systematic Review
Doing community-based research during dual public health emergencies (COVID and overdose)
Injecting drugs alone during an overdose crisis in Vancouver, Canada
Putting Indigenous Harm Reduction to Work: Developing and Evaluating “Not Just Naloxone”
Applying the lessons of COVID-19 response to Canada’s worsening opioid epidemic
Non-disclosure of drug use in outpatient health care settings: Findings from a prospective cohort study in Vancouver, Canada
Addiction and Heroin-Assisted Treatment: Legal Discourse and Drug Reform