Advancing Evidence-Informed Cannabis Integration in Healthcare
Nurse-Led. Data-Driven. Patient-Centered.
Project Destigmatize HealTHCare is a national public health research initiative building the data infrastructure to make behavioral exposures — beginning with cannabis — visible, documented, and safe in clinical care.
A Structural Gap in Clinical Data
Healthcare systems track diagnoses, medications, procedures, and lab values. They do not consistently track cannabis use, dietary supplements, alcohol use patterns, or other behavioral exposures that materially influence pharmacology and clinical outcomes.
This creates a structural gap — built into clinical workflows, intake forms, and electronic health records from the beginning.
The result: clinicians are making prescribing, dosing, and surgical decisions without complete information. Patients face stigma when they try to disclose. Risk models underperform because an entire class of clinically significant inputs is missing.
"These behavioral exposures materially influence pharmacology, clinical outcomes, and utilization — yet remain structurally invisible in healthcare systems."
Building the Infrastructure
Healthcare Is Missing
PDH conducts the original population-level research needed to understand, document, and ultimately close the behavioral exposure gap in clinical care. Our work moves from data to infrastructure to impact.
Research
We conduct national surveys of patients, clinicians, and cannabis retail workers to generate the primary data on disclosure patterns, stigma, knowledge gaps, and documentation practices.
Infrastructure
Research findings directly inform the development of Behavioral Risk Infrastructure (BRI) — standardized intake tools, documentation frameworks, and EHR integration pathways that healthcare systems can adopt.
Intelligence
BRI feeds Preventive Clinical Risk Intelligence (PCRI) — the emerging discipline that converts behavioral exposure data into actionable clinical prevention tools, including risk stratification models and clinical decision support.
Research Programs
PDH currently operates three core surveys, each targeting a distinct segment of the behavioral exposure documentation gap. Data compounds across programs to build a national evidence base.
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A national patient and community survey examining cannabis disclosure patterns, healthcare communication barriers, and stigma experiences.
Who should participate: Adults who use or have used cannabis and have interacted with the healthcare system.
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A survey of physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals examining cannabis knowledge, documentation practices, clinical comfort, and training needs.
In development with: Our clinical networks. IRB protocol in development.
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A public health study of cannabis retail workers examining health guidance practices, knowledge gaps, and opportunities for standardized clinical risk communication training.
Target: Cannabis retail workforce across legal-status states, in partnership with local dispensaries.
The Clinical Stakes
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Cannabis interacts with the CYP450 enzyme system — the same pathway that metabolizes many common medications. When use is undisclosed, drug interaction risk is invisible at every prescription.
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Cannabis and alcohol use alter anesthetic requirements and perioperative cardiovascular function. Without disclosure, surgical teams are calibrating to incomplete patient data.
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Risk stratification models trained on incomplete data underperform. Behavioral exposures are a class of clinically significant inputs systematically excluded from the models that govern resource allocation and clinical decision-making.
About Project Destigmatize HealTHCare
Project Destigmatize HealTHCare is an initiative of the National Center for Medical Cannabis Policy & Research, Inc., a Massachusetts 501(c)(3) public health research organization.
PDH is not a cannabis advocacy organization.
We are a clinical research initiative generating evidence that informs healthcare systems, clinicians, and policymakers.
Our research is nurse-led. Our methodology is evidence-based. Our goal is a healthcare system where patient disclosure is safe, clinicians are informed, and care decisions are guided by data rather than stigma.
Project Destigmatize Healthcare was founded by an Afro-Latina clinician committed to advancing patient safety, disclosure integrity, and healthcare transparency.
Your Experience Is Research Data.
Anonymous. Confidential. Research for public health.
If you use cannabis and have a healthcare provider, your disclosure experience matters. Participate in our national survey and help build the evidence base for safer, stigma-free clinical care.