Columbia University Opioid Crisis Response

The Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, home to Columbia University’s CTSA Program hub, congratulates Dr. Nabila El-Bassel, University Professor and the Willma and Albert Musher Professor of Social Work, and her colleagues on being awarded funding that will contribute to a multi-year study, part of the NIH HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-term) Initiative. The proposed research will develop and test a County-system Hub and Spoke Empowerment (CHASE) model to reduce incidence of fatal overdoses in 15 geographically and racially diverse counties in New York State that averaged 28.2 deaths per 100,000 in 2017. New York State ranks second in the nation in absolute numbers of opioid overdose deaths.

The CHASE proposal is a tour de force interdisciplinary team science effort led by Drs. Nabila El-Bassel and Edward Nunes, Professor of Psychiatry, and Principal Investigator of the Greater New York Node of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Clinical Trials Network. This effort will speed scientific solutions to end the national opioid crisis by discovering new ways to get more treatments to more patients more quickly, focusing on tangible and measurable outcomes, and placing patients at the heart and center of the process.

The Irving Institute is pleased to have contributed to the preliminary development of this proposal. Drs. Nabila El-Bassel and Edward Nunes first met while participating in the Irving Institute’s Opioid Crisis Response Initiative Community Work Group and quickly formed a research team. In 2018, Dr. El-Bassel received an Irving Institute pilot award to support the “Mid-Hudson Opioid 2CARE Pilot”. This funding provided critical proof-of-principle and preliminary data that facilitate a successful HEALing Communities application.

Learn more about the Irving Institute’s opioid crisis response activities.