Funded Projects

Numerous harm reduction strategies are available to reduce the harmful consequences of drug use. Examples include syringe services programs that provide sterile syringes, easy access to naloxone, and fentanyl test strips that may help people identify whether the substance(s) they plan to take contain fentanyl. This project aims to evaluate the use and effectiveness of several strategies in an urban environment as well as determine the openness and commitment of providers to offering them. 

This project creates the HEAL Data2Action Data Infrastructure Support Center that will conduct research as well as support the HEAL Data2Action Innovation Projects with analytics and support for navigating electronic health records and other “big data” sources, as well as logistical processes related to privacy and ethics. The center will help plan for data collection and assessing outcomes, as well as provide data visualization efforts for various stakeholders. Key support mechanisms include courses, seminars, conferences, trainings, and on-demand technical assistance.

While some people who use drugs do not carry or use naloxone, others respond to multiple overdoses over short periods of time. This project aims to identify characteristics and experiences of these individuals, known as “overdose responders,” toward better understanding barriers to naloxone use. The research will also test interventions to support the well-being of responders and to increase the number of community members ready and willing to give naloxone to reverse overdose. 

There has been a substantial increase in overdose deaths among Black and Hispanic/Latino people who use drugs. This project will test and evaluate delivery of harm reduction services from a mobile van. A community-based care coordinator will assess the specific needs of each participant (such as housing, food assistance, and mental health treatment) toward the goal of linking each person to appropriate services.

This project creates the HEAL Data2Action Research Adoption Support Center to support the HEAL Data2Action Innovation Projects. It will provide supportive evidence for prevention and treatment practices, form implementation strategies, assess outcomes, obtain feedback from the projects, and assess readiness for scalability. This center will offer on-demand technical assistance, host a learning collaborative, harmonize dissemination and implementation data, provide implementation support, and help with stakeholder engagement. The research will also catalogue evidence-based and emerging opioid use disorder and pain management practices as a resource to the field. The center will address timely, high-priority implementation challenges.

Access to harm reduction services are often limited in rural areas. Secondary distribution is a potentially promising strategy for rural areas that involves people sharing harm reduction supplies such as naloxone or fentanyl test strips with other people who use drugs that do not come into contact with harm reduction service providers. This project aims to examine drug use and use of harm reduction services among people in rural communities, as well as highlight factors that make people more or less likely to use secondary distribution approaches.

Timely and accurate surveillance of fatal and non-fatal overdoses is necessary in light of the worsening overdose crisis, but data is rarely available in real-time. Tracking non-fatal overdoses is especially important because patients who overdose once are likely to experience additional and potentially fatal overdoses. This project aims to increase the quality and timeliness of non-fatal overdose data estimates by analyzing clinicians’ notes rather than clinical codes from emergency department and emergency medical services records. The datasets and models produced from this research will be used to build an interactive dashboard with up-to-date, county-level overdose-surveillance estimates for use by Kentucky first responders to aid in rapid allocation of resources.

Research is needed to better understand how to make life-saving harm reduction services more accessible to populations that are hard to reach. This project will identify the physical and psychological factors that make harm reduction services most effective. The findings will then be used to inform the development, implementation, and testing of an innovative strategy consisting of several internet- and smartphone-based tools designed to improve access to harm reduction services for people who are hard to reach. 

To respond quickly and effectively to the constantly changing dynamics of the opioid crisis, public health agencies and organizations need timely state and local data to make critical decisions about where to allocate resources and target responses. This project creates the Rapid Actionable Data for Opioid Response in Kentucky system, a near real-time statewide surveillance system. This resource will combine data from multiple state agencies to provide actionable and timely information to support opioid overdose prevention, harm reduction, evidence-based treatment, and recovery services. The project will also develop user-driven reporting and visualization tools (mobile and web-based apps) that provide immediate access to near real-time community or state level data, reports, and visual analytics.

This research provides support to strengthen data management, data sharing, and data readiness efforts within the HEAL Initiative. This support further fosters collaboration among HEAL awardees and enables maximal data discoverability, interoperability, and reuse by aligning with the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles. It also provides an opportunity for existing HEAL Initiative award recipients to increase data “FAIR”-ness, participate in coordinated HEAL Initiative activities to build community around data sharing, and foster sustainability of HEAL Initiative digital assets.

The lack of timely data about drug use and overdose deaths has hindered the ability of communities and state agencies to allocate resources to regions where they are most needed. This project will develop a secure data pool that combines individual and community-level real-time data from multiple sources, including urine drug testing. These data will then be used to model the contribution of opioid, cocaine, and stimulant use to overdoses, overdose deaths, and cases of substance use disorder. This research will also use urine drug testing results and demographic/contextual data to identify populations and subpopulations at highest risk of drug use and overdose. This information will be displayed through a data platform tailored to the needs of end users (e.g., communities or agencies) and with user-friendly tools that help users make informed decisions on where resources are most urgently needed.

More than half of children and adolescents diagnosed with a type of cancer called bone sarcoma experience pain that interferes with daily life. This project will adapt an evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy mobile app for use with Black and Hispanic adolescents who disproportionately experience pain from this cancer, putting them at risk for opioid misuse. Once fully adapted, this therapy will be paired with a remotely delivered brain stimulation treatment (transcranial direct current stimulation). This research will also examine the impact of patient-reported conditions such as depression, anxiety, and sleep problems, as well as of various social determinants of health, on pain.

The widespread availability of fentanyl and other potent synthetic opioids has dramatically increased opioid-related fatal overdoses. This project will develop and manufacture immune molecules (monoclonal antibodies) to reverse and treat overdose from fentanyl by keeping it out of the brain. This research will advance promising results in animal studies (preventing and reversing fentanyl- and carfentanil-induced breathing problems and irregular heartbeat) to clinical testing in people with opioid use disorder and others at high risk of opioid overdose from accidental or deliberate exposure to fentanyl and fentanyl-like drugs.