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Heather A Olsen

Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Safety, Denver Health and Hospital Authority, Denver, CO.

2 papers in the library · 14 citations · publishing 2024-2026

Papers

Clinical Effects of Psychedelic Substances Reported to United States Poison Centers: 2012 to 2022.

Annals of emergency medicine December 1, 2024 Mark W Simon, Heather A Olsen, Christopher O Hoyte et al. 12 citations

Over half of psychedelic exposures reported to US poison centers resulted in symptoms that required treatment, severe residual or prolonged symptoms, or death. From 2012 to 2022, 54,605 cases were recorded, with hallucinogenic mushroom exposures rising most sharply from 593 to 1,440. Cardiovascular effects were common, especially with hallucinogenic amphetamines (31.1%). Among patients managed in healthcare facilities, 62.4% received medical therapies, including sedation (32.9%) and respiratory interventions (10.3%). Concomitant exposures occurred in 41.1% of cases. Increasing psychedelic use may lead to more adverse events and healthcare utilization.

Fusing Specialized Surveys of Rare Populations to Larger Surveys for Generalized Inference: Cross-Sectional Survey Study.

Journal of medical Internet research April 27, 2026 Karilynn M Rockhill, Elizabeth A Bemis, Nicole Schow et al. 2 citations

Combining a large representative survey with a smaller survey focused on psychedelic drugs can produce generalizable estimates of rare behaviors like drug use without adding burdensome questions to the big survey. Researchers used calibration weighting to transport estimates from a psychedelic-enriched survey (two waves, total over 4,300 adults) to a representative anchor survey (two waves, total over 57,000 adults). The method showed good internal consistency, with transport biases under 0.4 percentage points for demographics, health, and substance use. External validity improved for health and substance use estimates after fusion. Using the fused data, recreational use of psilocybin (92.9%), LSD (93.2%), and MDMA (93.3%) was far more common than medical use (30.9%, 26.4%, and 21.1%, respectively). This approach expands surveillance epidemiology for rare behaviors.