Staying Safe

The Staying Safe app is designed to help people who are active opioid users and drug injectors avoid negative health consequences linked to their drug use. Based on the latest scientific evidence, the app teaches safety strategies to help you (the user) protect yourself from becoming infected with the hepatitis C virus and HIV and to prevent opioid-related overdose. One of the ways it does this is by increasing awareness of risk behaviors so you can better manage your opioid use. It also provides up-to-date, science-based information so you can make informed decisions about how to best prevent risky behaviors. Staying Safe is grounded in an innovative harm reduction approach that encourages people who inject drugs to not only protect their own health, but to also spread safety messages and strategies to their peers who use drugs, thereby creating new safety-enhancing norms in their broader drug-using communities.

Following established principles of behavior science, the Staying Safe app uses self-monitoring functions to support your process of behavior change. The app guides you in tracking five key behaviors related to opioid use that are important to maintaining health and provides easy-to-understand, graphical feedback on the behaviors you track.

The app also includes seven Staying Safe Topics with useful, detailed and realistic information, based on the latest scientific knowledge, to help you protect your health, and a Resources module with information about and links to a range of services and web-based resources dedicated to promoting the health of people who use drugs.

The Staying Safe app aims at improving the health of drug users by preventing HIV, HCV and overdose.

The Staying Safe app is completely free and 100% private. It has been developed as a result of the collaboration with the National Development and Research Institutes Inc. (www.ndri.org).