Grant Awarded to Address Gap in Substance Use Disorder Treatment
Emily Zimmerman, Ph.D., M.S., M.P.H, an associate professor for the Department of Epidemiology in the School of Population Health, was awarded a R24 grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a five-year study aimed at informing substance use disorder (SUD) treatment research.
While effective treatments for SUD continue to evolve, there remains a gap in the number of individuals who would benefit from it and those who receive it. Meanwhile, overdose deaths continue to rise. Much of the current research intended to address the gap focuses on the supply side, while patient-level barriers go under-researched. Data suggests many individuals who need treatment find it inconvenient, unaffordable, ineffective and highly stigmatizing.
Closing the treatment gap will require a more nuanced understanding of patient perspectives, with innovative service delivery models informed by a user-centered design approach.
Zimmerman and her team will conduct this research in three steps.
First, they will establish a patient advisory panel to better understand the needs and barriers faced by adults with SUD in underserved communities in Richmond, VA.
“The patient advisory panel really embodies the principle of people’s lived experiences as experts.” – Emily Zimmerman, Ph.D., M.S., M.P.H.
Next, using qualitative, participatory, arts-based approaches, the team will conduct research on patient experiences. They aim to empower participants to explore and articulate their experiences. Arts-based workshops will allow participants to express their past experiences and their journey in an accessible way. There will be formal interviews as well as group projects that express what’s important or meaningful to the participants.
Finally, in the last two years of this study, the team will implement two pilot programs to address the needs and close the treatment gap. The programs will likely focus on care delivery, education, and alternative dissemination strategies, but that will be determined by steps one and two: the patient advocacy panels and results of the arts-based workshops. Through ongoing data collection, they will facilitate evaluation, quality improvement, resource management, and stakeholder communication at key milestones.
A unique opportunity within NIH
“You don’t see a lot of grants that are heavily invested in community engagement or rely on lived experience to drive research,” Zimmerman explained. “For me, it’s all about community engagement work. This patient advisory panel really embodies that principle of centering people’s lived experiences.”
The patient advisory panel will have two years of capacity building research and then three more years to implement and share what they have learned. It’s a unique and exciting opportunity for the research team and the Richmond community.
Three other centers across the country received funding for similar research. What makes this team different is the urban setting with underserved populations.
“I think there are a lot of urban centers that have similar issues to what we’ll find in our research. So hopefully anything we learn will be of use to urban areas across the country,” Zimmerman said.
Categories public health research