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Article History

Received: 7 May 2019

Accepted: 18 February 2020

First Online: 6 March 2020

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: All procedures, including procedures for obtaining informed consent were approved by the University of Massachusetts Boston Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects (FWA00004634, IRB Reg # 00000690, FWA Exp: 8/24/21). Sampled patients received a letter from Principal Investigator at the University of Massachusetts Boston about 1 week prior to the phone survey informing them that participation was completely voluntary and confidential and would not affect their program services. These points as well as the assurance that respondents could decline to answer any question and could terminate the interview at any point were repeated in the introduction on the phone and the interview did not proceed unless patients consented verbally. The IRB judged this standard procedure for obtaining consent in phone surveys to be sufficient to ensure that participation was both informed and voluntary.

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Both surveys were funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) and DPH staff for the programs surveyed provided feedback on the questions proposed for the survey and contact information for the participants in the programs. DPH had no other role in the design of the study or the collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data. Although the initial director of both programs co-authored this manuscript, she had retired from DPH 10 years before this manuscript was prepared.