The Indiana Recovery Alliance operates under the philosophy of harm reduction to educate the community and to promote the health and dignity of the individuals and communities impacted by drug use. We respectfully collaborate with people to assist in any positive change, as a person defines it for themselves, beginning where the person is at, with no biases or condemnations for the person's chosen lifestyle. Our efforts advance policies, practices, and programs that address the adverse effects of drug use including overdose, HIV, hepatitis C, Substance Use Disorder, and incarceration.
The Indiana Recovery Alliance (IRA) formed as an official non-profit after the Scott County HIV outbreak in southern Indiana, as well as in response to increased Hepatitis C infection rates and an enormous increase in opiate overdose in Monroe County over the last few years. Grassroots in our origins, we were initially called to action in 2013 when a young man named Ian Stark died from exposure in an apartment stairwell on the city's north side. We began as a few friends on bikes distributing harm reduction supplies, blankets, and winter jackets. As we listened to the needs of the people in our community, we quickly added sterile supplies to our services to empower them to mitigate negative health consequences associated with IV drug use. Within a year, the worst HIV outbreak in US history broke out in Scott County, and we rapidly expanded our efforts to make sure our community was not similarly devastated. New legislation soon passed that allowed us to legally offer comprehensive harm reduction services. Since that time, we have reached thousands of at-risk community members, distributing over 100,000 doses of the overdose reversal drug Naloxone, and mitigating the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C in our community by giving out hundreds of thousands of dollars in sterile supplies. We have grown substantially over the years, and have been able to operate with a needs-based distribution model; however, limited state funding and an increased demand for sterile supplies year over the year make securing additional funding critical if we want to continue to run our program with evidence-based best practices.
Indiana Recovery Alliance provides harm reduction services to people who use drugs (PWUD) and others affected by substance use in our communities. The IRA’s target populations are those who self-identify as intravenous drug users, opiate/meth users, sex workers, and their friends and families. By operating under the philosophy of harm reduction, administering Monroe County’s syringe access program (SAP), and collaborating directly with our target population, we can work collectively to advance policies, practices, and programs that address the adverse effects of drug use, including but not limited to, overdose, HIV, hepatitis C, addiction and incarceration.
We primarily work in Monroe County, as it is only legal for us to distribute sterile syringes within the county as contracted by the Monroe County Health Department. We do, however, regularly distribute harm reduction supplies and naloxone state-wide. There is a clear need for funding to address hepatitis C prevention within this community. A hepatitis C emergency was declared in Monroe County in 2016. New cases of chronic HCV have increased in Monroe County year over year (YoY), from 92 cases in 2011 to 140 cases in 2017. The latest (2019) CDC data shows Indiana as #2 in the nation in terms of the highest acute HCV infections. New cases of HCV are also primarily caused by injection drug use. Of the new cases of HIV in 2016 in Indiana, 32% were related to injection drug use. The CDC estimates 80% of people with HIV who inject drugs are co-infected with HCV. Thus, when a participant requests an HIV screening, we provide education on the risk factors and recommend an HCV screening as well. We are currently working with a local AIDS service organization to provide rapid access to both HIV medications and HCV Direct-Acting Antiviral medications.
