Dr. Jane Buxton
Jane Buxton, Professor, School of Population and Public Health has won the Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA)’s Ron Draper Health Promotion Award. The Ron Draper Health Promotion Award is presented to an individual, group or organization engaged in community work who has made a significant contribution to health promotion by working in the community to build healthy public policy, create environments that support health, enable community action, enhance personal skills, and/or re-orient health services.
Dr. Buxton’s work has influenced numerous national and regional policy initiatives, empowered people who use drugs to learn a life-saving skill, and helped reduce the burden of overdose morbidity and mortality. Working closely with peers (people who use drugs) and public health colleagues, she introduced the BC Take Home Naloxone (THN) program in 2012, which trains lay people how to prevent, recognize and respond to opioid overdose using naloxone. Naloxone is a safe medication which restores breathing during an opioid overdose and has no effect in the absence of opioids.