Rachel Jackson
Rachel is a long-time activist, organizer and harm reduction worker. Her activism includes work around police brutality, state repression, and juvenile justice; reproductive justice and abortion rights; workers, educators and tenants’ rights; environmental justice and landback; sustainable economies and mutual aid; anti-war work and support of military resisters.
Rachel has worked in harm reduction for over 30 years, beginning with the Urban Health Study, where she started as an interviewer/counselor and later became the training coordinator and program coordinator. She has also worked with the National Harm Reduction Coalition as Program Manager of the California Statewide Technical Assistance & Training Project and as a trainer with the Harm Reduction Training Institute.
Rachel is also part of the OASIS/Hep C Free Oakland family, having gotten involved when it was providing a combination of patient care, a weekly support group for people considering or undergoing HCV treatment, and an advocacy and activism component that fought for improved medications and access to treatment, especially for active and former drug users.
In recent years, Rachel has been working with RTI on public health research projects that seek to better understand drug user health, motivations for drug use, overdose experiences, and the availability and quality of services for active drug users in the San Francisco Bay Area..