PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A five-year, $3.6 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse will enable a team led by Brown University public health researchers to study a policing program that connects people who use drugs to care, treatment and resources instead of sending them to jail.

People who use drugs encounter police millions of times a year, according to the researchers, providing a critical opportunity to connect them with effective treatment and services as an alternative to arrest and prosecution for minor charges. Such “police-assisted diversion” programs have been adopted by hundreds of law enforcement agencies across the U.S., but there has been little if any scientific analysis of the programs.

“There’s still a lot of uncertainty about diversion: to what extent it’s successful, whether it's cost-effective, what the prevalence is, how best to implement it,” said Brandon del Pozo, an assistant professor of medicine (research) and health services, policy and practice (research) at Brown University, who served as a police officer for 23 years.

Del Pozo will lead a collaborative team of researchers based at Brown University, Brown University Health, Johns Hopkins University, New York University and Thomas Jefferson University in the five-year study, which launches in October 2025. To fill critical gaps in knowledge about the cost, health impacts and successful implementation of police-assisted diversion programs, the researchers will study the programs designed to provide links to care in two U.S. cities with acute and persistent overdose crises: Philadelphia and Baltimore.

The team will study the implementation of programs in both cities and assess the cost effectiveness and health outcomes of the program in Philadelphia, which has been in operation since 2017. The site of Baltimore, which faced implementation challenges that ultimately rendered the program unsustainable, will provide an opportunity for researchers to understand how a promising initiative can stagnate, and how to successfully re-implement the program in that city.

Nearly 85% of people who use drugs report a history of arrest, and a third report a recent police encounter. The police-assisted diversion approach, in which arrestees on minor charges are immediately connected with care rather than booked in jail, represents an intervention for people who use drugs who are otherwise difficult to engage, del Pozo said. It also has the potential to reduce exposure to prolonged entanglements with the criminal justice system that can threaten a person’s health.

Del Pozo said the project addresses the first strategic priority of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which aims to decrease the number of drug overdose deaths through initiatives that use “law-enforcement-assisted diversion to connect people who use drugs with supportive services that divert them from incarceration and reduce recidivism.”

“The specific aims of this study will provide insights critical to the implementation of police-assisted diversion programs across U.S. police departments,” del Pozo said, “informing interventions to reduce overdose fatalities nationwide.”