Drug Use in Business Bathrooms: An exploratory study of manager encounters in New York City.

• In Event: Strength in Numbers: A New Model for Undergraduate Research on Hot Topics in Criminal Justice and Public Health

Abstract

The problems that drug users experience as a result of injecting in public bathrooms have been documented and described in the literature and in the media, but no research has explored the experiences of business managers who oversee these bathrooms and respond to drug use. We hypothesized that managers were encountering drug use but that they had not received any opioid overdose reversal training. This study trained undergraduate students in quantitative interviewing and ethnographic techniques to assist in data collection and utilized a convenience sampling method. More than half of managers (58%) encountered drug use in their business bathrooms and more than a third (34%) of these managers also found syringes. These managers, by default, are first-responders in the event of a drug overdose yet the vast majority (90%) has received no training on how to properly respond. The results from this study underline the need for additional research as well as the need for educational outreach efforts among this population of unwitting first-responders. This research can also assist in guiding the development of mutually beneficial solutions for both the community and drug users.

Authors

• Brett Wolfson-Stofko, NDRI / Center for Drug Use & HIV Research

• Alex Bennett, National Development and Research Institutes

• Luther Elliott, National Development and Research Institutes

• Ric Curtis, John Jay College of Criminal Justice