Chris Smith, BSN, RN

Chris Smith, RN-BSN is the Overdose Prevention Liaison at the Kentucky Department for Public Health, seconded to the Department by Vital Strategies.
Working as an Emergency Medical Technician and a Registered Nurse in rural and urban Kentucky, he saw first-hand the limits of stigmatized approaches to the harms associated with substance use. This led to his career transition to public health and harm reduction. Working closely with people who use drugs in a Syringe Service Program, he learned to center lived and living experience in health promotion and to advocate for evidence-based interventions based on Harm Reduction principles. Chris is proud to be working with the KDPH Harm Reduction Program, sharing these strategies across the Commonwealth. In this role, he manages the statewide naloxone access portal FindNaloxoneNowKY.org, while working strategically with government partners and community-based organizations to develop and coordinate Overdose Education and Naloxone
Distribution across the commonwealth.