Description: Accordingly, there is an urgent need for policies that address barriers to substance use treatment and harm reduction resources that are created in partnership with and serve BIPOC people who use drugs (PWUD). Knowledge co-creation with people with lived and living experience (i.e., validate local knowledge) and identification of existing community-specific health information networks is critical to building sustainable community power that informs policy-oriented research to eradicate racial inequities. To that end, this presentation includes a cogent historical reckoning of the ways in which systemic racism perpetuates harms to BIPOC PWUD, including within the substance use treatment complex, and proposes a multi-pronged, community-engaged research strategy to address racial disparities in drug overdose mortality through multicomponent policy changes developed with the involvement of BIPOC PWUD, care providers, outreach workers, and grassroots organizations.

Lessons Learned: We propose that future, policy-oriented research would optimally benefit from knowledge co-creation with people with lived and living experience (i.e., validate local knowledge) and identification of existing, community-specific health information networks.

Recommendations: This approach will advance intervention and implementation research and practice toward dismantling well-documented barriers that drive racial disparities in US overdose mortality.