Worth County Grad Designs National Program to Combat Opioids

Worth County grad Tisha Wiley has designed a $155 million national initiative to address gaps in the opioid crisis. She currently lives in Washington, DC and works for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which is part of the National Institute of Health.

Around 18 months ago, she was asked to come up with a big idea for an initiative to address the crisis, which has been in the news lately. She spent the last 18 months designing the program, and she will spend the next five years overseeing the program.

As a result of Wiley’s work, the NIH is awarding 12 grants totaling $155 million to 10 research institutions and two centers that will provide supportive infrastructure. A network will be formed, which will be known as the Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network, which will support further research on opioid use disorder in criminal justice settings nationwide.

The goal will be to bring together justice and behavioral health stakeholders to improve the capacity of the criminal justice system to respond to the opioid crisis. This will be part of the NIH’s efforts to end long-term opioid addiction.

Awarded research centers will study evidence-based medications, behavioral interventions, digital therapeutics and comprehensive patient-centered treatments in 15 states and Puerto Rico.

Specific research examples include:
–Conducting research on the effectiveness and adoption of new medications for OUD
–Evaluating new state mandates around medication services and drug courts
–Assessing effectiveness and implementation of processes to engage and retain individuals in OUD treatment (e.g., telehealth, patient navigation, and peer recovery support services)
–Determining how to implement opioid-related services at the community, state, and national levels

Each grantee will work with five or more communities, where they will engage with organizations in justice settings and service providers in the community. JCOIN will address gaps in OUD treatment and related services in a wide range of criminal justice settings, including jails, drug courts, problem-solving courts, policing and diversion, re-entry, and probation and parole.

The funded institutions and respective site locations include:
–New York State Psychiatric Institute – New York
–Baystate Medical Center – Massachusetts
–Friends Research Institute, Inc. – Maryland
–Texas Christian University – Illinois, New Mexico, Texas
–New York University School of Medicine – Connecticut, Delaware, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon
–Brown University – North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island
–University of Chicago – Illinois
–Chestnut Health Systems, Inc. – Illinois
–University of Kentucky – Kentucky
–Yale University – Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Puerto Rico

George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, will serve as the JCOIN coordination and translation center and will be responsible for the management of logistics, engagement with practitioners and other key stakeholders in the justice and behavioral health fields, and dissemination of products and key research findings. It will also conduct research to identify effective dissemination strategies for reaching criminal justice stakeholders and provide funding for rapid turnaround innovative pilot studies. An educational component will provide outreach and mentorship to researchers and practitioners working in justice settings.

The University of Chicago will serve as the methodology and advanced analytic resource center and will provide data infrastructure and statistical and analytic expertise to support individual JCOIN studies and cross-site data synchronization. In addition, the center will conduct novel empirical research to understand the changes in state policies and practices within the criminal justice system as they relate to the opioid crisis.