Academic Summary: Perceived Devaluation among a Cohort of Street-Involved Youth in

Vancouver, Canada.

Logan Carter

University of the Fraser Valley

CMNS-125-AB7: Professional Communications

Professor Melanie Opmeer

October 19, 2022

 Perceived Devaluation among a Cohort of Street of Street-involved Youth in Vancouver,

Canada is a study exploring data to show the demographic. Furthermore, this is a summary of

how people who use illicit drugs (PWUD) struggle with stigma that prevents them from seeking

mental and physical help.

Negative emotions and desires are often attributed to those looked down upon in society.

This is common among sub marginalized groups, such as street involved youth (Karamouzin et

al., 2019). In Addition, they have a higher risk of mental and physical health related problems.

Perceived devaluation is the feeling when PWUD believe they are treated as their perceived

negative stereotypes, increasing the difficulty of seeking help (Karamouzin et al., 2019).

Showing that street-involved youths face huge negative outcomes when they have strong

feelings of this stigma. At-Risk Youth Study issued out questionnaires to participates who match

the criteria (Karamouzin et al., 2019). The questions are constructed on a point system of

evaluating how much perceived devaluation they felt. The results showed an overall of 86% of

participants reported feeling perceived devolution highly and 95.1% at some point during the

questionnaire (Karamouzin et al., 2019). The results are concerning as most street involved

youths will be stigmatised from pursing help. Certain variables play role in the results,

residences belonging to the Downtown East side experience lower levels of perceived

devaluation as drug use is more prevalent (Karamouzin et al., 2019). While heroin users tend to

feel most stigmatized and negatively labeled as other PWUD tends to distant themselves from

them (Karamouzin et al., 2019). The findings shows that street involved youths are at most risk
of feeling perceived devaluation (Karamouzin et al., 2019). Decreasing the amount of stigma

around illicit drug use will decrease future risk of health problems, making improvements

especially activities for youths (Karamouzin et al., 2019).

This article did a good job of painting the picture of how stigma can affect drug users and their

chances of pursuing help. The data table is difficult to understand with different measurements.

I had the perception that stigma can lead to increased risk of health problems and not seeking

help, and this study shows the majority of feeling high levels of perceived devaluations, which

overall leads to more negative outcomes. More research and study on this topic could help

boost areas such as the downtown east side and create better environments for everyone.
 References

Karamouzin, M., Cheng, T., Sedgemore, K., Shoveller, J., Kerr, T., & Debeck, K. (2019).

Perceived devaluation among a cohort of street-involved youth in Vancouver, Canada.

Substance Use & Misuse, 54(2), 324-330.