%0 Journal Article %A Andrew Burns %A Kat Albrecht %T Localized Syndemic Assemblages: COVID-19, Substance Use Disorder, and Overdose Risk in Small-Town America %D 2022 %R 10.7758/RSF.2022.8.8.11 %J RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences %P 245-262 %V 8 %N 8 %X Pandemics do not exist in isolation and COVID-19 is no exception. We argue that existing health crises, notably substance use disorder (SUD), developed syndemic relationships with COVID-19 that produced compounding deleterious effects. Combining Merrill Singer’s theory of syndemics and assemblage theory, we analyze the combinatory impact of overdose and COVID-19 within a localized context. We focus on Sandusky, Ohio, where we combine police reports, in-depth interviews with area residents, and ethnographic data to compare conditions before and after the emergence of COVID-19. We find dramatic shifts in relevant local contexts due to COVID-19, inhibiting existing systems of law and public policy aimed at overdose prevention and SUD treatment. Further, our findings provide evidence of complications in the COVID-19 response originating from the overdose epidemic. %U https://www.rsfjournal.org/content/rsfjss/8/8/245.full.pdf