Harm Reduction

Médecins du Monde’s Harm Reduction approach promotes health, social justice, empowerment, respect and dignity for individuals in their life and health journeys. It is a hallmark of our uniqueness and expertise. We are committed to strengthening the cross-cutting integration of the Harm Reduction approach in each of our campaigns.

Our position

Every person is an expert of their own health.

The Harm Reduction approach places individuals at the heart of their own health journey, recognizing their experiential knowledge and capacity to act. Médecins du Monde Canada promotes this pragmatic and humanistic approach, which aims to reduce the negative consequences of certain behaviors or structural obstacles on health, without judgment or stigmatization.

It is a hallmark of our expertise that we continue to develop and share, both internally and with our partners in the community and institutional networks.

In numbers
22 828
people would have died in Canada from opioid-related poisoning between 2016 and 2021
485
overdose-related deaths were recorded in Quebec in 2024
33 %
increase compared to the previous year
1442
encounters carried out by the mobile clinic team between 2025 and 2026
Mobile Clinic Mobile Clinic
Indigenous Navigator Indigenous Navigator