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Project SHIELD 2.0
Sponsor: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Summary
The project is a pragmatic, quasi-experimental hybrid type II effectiveness-implementation trial of a structural HIV prevention intervention to address police behavior (arrests and referrals) and ultimately improve health among people who use drugs. The study involves a novel implementation strategy that engages behavioral health workers as "local champions" in the delivery of an evidence-based police education program (SHIELD training intervention). In addition to examining implementation outcomes, primary outcomes focus on assessing effectiveness of the intervention among police (specifically in reducing drug-related arrests and promoting referrals to Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) treatment. The investigator's overarching effectiveness hypothesis is that after law enforcement organizations receive the SHIELD training intervention, they will be more likely to refer people who use drugs to MOUD treatment and other health and social services, rather than arresting them for low level possession offenses. The study will be conducted across different counties in Appalachian Kentucky.
Official title: Project SHIELD 2.0: Police Education to Support Public Health in Kentucky
Key Details
Gender
All
Age Range
18 Years - Any
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Enrollment
150
Start Date
2026-06-25
Completion Date
2029-04-30
Last Updated
2026-09-04
Healthy Volunteers
Yes
Conditions
Interventions
SHIELD 2.0
SHIELD is an evidence-based police education training program that has been demonstrated to change police behavior (arrest and referrals) and improve outcomes among police and people who use drugs in NIH-funded and other research studies. The original intervention delivery relied on academic teams, limiting sustainability and scalability. Our novel "SHIELD 2.0" implementation strategy aims to address these limitations by capacitating the local behavioral health workforce to implement the steps of the SHIELD process, specifically to complete the delivery of the SHIELD intervention to local police officers.
Locations (1)
University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky, United States