People who use drugs, community advocates and harm reduction specialists partners with researchers and
designers to see through an iterative design process to manufacture prototypes to be later evaluated and
produced.
Naloxone was approved by the FDA in 1971 as an opioid antagonist, capable of countering the effects of opioid overdoses. Since then, addiction and abuse of opioids in the US has only grown, in the US. as deaths rose in Rhode Island, COBRE, a research group out of Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital, built, among many projects, a community design workshop to ask Product Design to help them solve a small part of this problem.
People who use drugs, community advocates and harm reduction specialists partners with researchers and
designers to see through an iterative design process to manufacture prototypes to be later evaluated and
produced.
This is the clunky box that Naloxone is distributed in is often refused. People who use
drugs and do carry naloxone often immediately unpackage it, or store it in a car or house. The problem
becomes
that one cannot use naloxone on themselves, so a box in a car can't save a user's life.
So the
challenge was, to make a container that would help uses carry the drug with them on a daily basis.
Mid-Stage Prototypes
Creating a container that can go on your keys, your backpack, or comfortably in a pocket. The product had to
be
water resistant, thermally and UV protectant, and reusable, all while still being affordable enough to
produce
and distribute at low or no cost to the community partners.
Messaging for this project was crucial, what should the container say? Should it be labeled with the more
common
brand name [NARCAN] or the less political drug name [naloxone]? Should the box be concealed in case users
feel
shame to carry it? Should the contents be obvious in case the person who carries the drug overdoses around
strangers?
So, for the final solution, we created a number of sticker options, both to personalize the containers and
make
them more appealing, and so carriers coul customize the messaging to better fit thrir own use case.
Final images of prototypes presented to the Community Design Workshop.
Affordable, compact PETG pack (1)
- can feature stickers for more discrete or clear carrying as well.
Intramuscular Narcan Leather Case (2)
- Light-proof and discrete.
Intranasal Naloxone Tin (3)
- Ft. messaging sticker covering window
The most popular of my designs, whose stickers really drove product use. To be presented at a panel in DC Sept 24, with COBRE support along with other research prototypes.
