Arlene Mahoney is the Executive Director of Southwest Recovery Alliance (SWRA). SWRA is a community-based harm reduction organization based in Phoenix, Arizona. Since 2019, SWRA has been implementing a syringe service program, utilizing a peer-led model of service delivery. Co-located within SWRA’s syringe service program is free rapid HIV and hepatitis C screening. Arlene has been working to advance, address, and support drug user health for over 7 years. She holds a master’s degree in social work and is passionate about mutual aid, overdose and disease prevention, and community-engaged research, in part because of the ethic of punishment she received rather than an ethic of care as a person who exercised their bodily autonomy outside normative standards.

Her experience of structural violence and stigma while engaging in a health-promoting behavior (seeking sterile syringes) and the adverse health outcomes that resulted from the barriers to access continues to shape her work while also bolstering her commitment to systems and practice change. Operationalizing her need for change, she has contributed to multiple peer-reviewed publications grounded in community-based participatory action research and is currently a Co-Investigator on a national trial focused on improving methadone treatment quality and patient outcomes. She serves as community co-chair of the Drug Policy Drug Research Advocacy and Policy Board (DPRAB) at the Harm Reduction Research Lab and is a member of the executive committee of Hep Free AZ.