WHiSE 2.0 Findings: AI-enabled Qualitative Research

According to the PLoS One cohort profile (Verma et al., 2026), WHiSE 2.0 enrolled 356 participants across Thunder Bay, Sudbury, and Sault Ste. Marie and documents urgent gaps in culturally safe harm reduction services. The PLoS One study was published on July 24, 2026 and reports baseline quantitative findings from interviewer-administered questionnaires collected between February 2023 and December 2024.

• 356 participants were enrolled: 173 in Thunder Bay, 101 in Sault Ste. Marie, and 82 in Sudbury, according to PLoS One (Verma et al., 2026).
• According to PLoS One (Verma et al., 2026), 84.0% of participants reported knowing what harm reduction is and 94.8% knew where to access services as of the first round reported in July 2026.
• According to PLoS One (Verma et al., 2026), 43.3% of participants reported injecting drugs in the prior three months and 92.1% reported smoking drugs in the prior three months, highlighting different modes of consumption by city.
• According to PLoS One (Verma et al., 2026), 82.3% had ever been tested for HIV and 84.3% for hepatitis C as of the baseline survey reported July 24, 2026.
• "WHiSE 2.0 is the first prospective cohort study examining the harm reduction needs of Indigenous people using substances in northern Ontario, " wrote Verma et al., 2026.

What happened: WHiSE 2.0 is an interviewer-administered, community-partnered cohort study designed to document harm reduction needs and practices among Indigenous people who use substances in northern Ontario, and that is reported in PLoS One (Verma et al., 2026).

How it was measured: According to PLoS One (Verma et al., 2026), the study used a 119-question interviewer-administered questionnaire implemented on REDCap, with data collection beginning November 2022, with Thunder Bay interviews between February 2023 and June 2024, Sault Ste. Marie interviews May to November 2024, and Sudbury interviews May to December 2024.

Who and where: According to PLoS One (Verma et al., 2026), eligible participants self-identified as Indigenous, were age 16 or older, lived in one of the three cities, and had used non-cannabis/ non-alcohol substances in the prior three months.

Constraints and governance: According to PLoS One (Verma et al., 2026), WHiSE 2.0 applied OCAP and CARE principles to data governance and restricted public release of minimal datasets to reduce re-identification risk.

Implication: Researchers should prioritize rapid, community-reviewed thematic outputs that connect cultural practices to harm reduction uptake, and that is consistent with the WHiSE 2.0 call for culturally grounded services in PLoS One (Verma et al., 2026).

Design choices: According to PLoS One (Verma et al., 2026), 71.3% of participants engaged in Indigenous ceremonies, so qualitative analysis must code for cultural practices, ceremony, and the impacts of colonization as primary themes linked to behavior.

Timing: According to PLoS One (Verma et al., 2026), the cohort’s second and third waves run through mid-2026 and early 2027, which creates an opportunity to use AI-enabled analysis to compare thematic change over time in near real time.

Ethics note: For Indigenous research, follow local data governance and OCAP/CARE principles as WHiSE 2.0 did, and treat qualitative outputs as community-governed rather than public domain, consistent with PLoS One (Verma et al., 2026).

WHiSE 2.0 provides a rich, community-governed dataset (n=356) that documents housing precarity, varied substance use modes, and strong cultural engagement, according to PLoS One (Verma et al., 2026).

AI-enabled qualitative research can accelerate community-reviewed thematic synthesis, preserve governance controls, and produce auditable summaries that program teams can act on within weeks rather than months.

If you want to pilot AI-assisted thematic analysis on cohort transcripts or REDCap exports while honoring Indigenous data governance, Try Evidano for free.