Examining Spatial Access to Addiction Treatment Provision Across Poland

Research on drug use in Poland and across Central and Eastern Europe is well developed. Epidemiological monitoring tells us a great deal about who uses what, where, and with what consequences. The other side of the equation has gone largely unexamined: where treatment is actually provided, who can reach it, and what determines that geography. This project addresses that gap.

A first look at the data suggests how uneven the picture is. Poland’s addiction treatment infrastructure comprises roughly a thousand facilities, but they are concentrated in fewer than a fifth of the country’s municipalities, and the best-served regions offer more than twice the coverage of the worst-served ones. Warsaw alone accounts for a substantial share of national provision. Distance to treatment is not distributed evenly, and neither, therefore, is the realistic prospect of receiving it.

What the project examines

The work is organised around three dimensions.

Territories and communities. How addiction treatment provision is spatially organised across Poland, how facilities are distributed relative to need, and what patterns emerge at regional and municipal scale.

Vulnerable populations. Whether access is equitable in practice, and how people seeking treatment experience the journey to it — including the barriers that a map of facilities does not show.

Policymaking and healthcare governance. How national policy frameworks, funding mechanisms and institutional arrangements shape, or fail to shape, spatial equity in provision.

Approach

The project measures accessibility through spatial analysis and then asks what those measurements mean in practice, working with the people who provide treatment and the people who seek it.

Poland is a revealing case. Its addiction treatment infrastructure emerged through post-socialist transformation, and its policy framework is institutionally sophisticated while lacking any explicit mandate for geographic equity.

Timeline

The project began in October 2026 and runs for 36 months, organised across five work packages moving from data infrastructure through national-scale analysis to regional case studies and policy synthesis.

Team

  • Daniel Štraub — principal investigator, Jagiellonian University
  • Łukasz Fiedeń — Jagiellonian University
  • Luc Ampleman — Jagiellonian University
  • Daniel Baldwin Hess — University at Buffalo, State University of New York

Funding

National Science Centre, Poland

Funded by the National Science Centre, Poland, under the OPUS 30 scheme, agreement no. UMO-2025/59/B/HS4/01181.

Last updated: September 2026