In Opinion: Communities Must Take the Lead in Preventing Opioid Overdoses, Dr. Nabila El-Bassel shares the successes of the HEALing Communities Study, a five-year study about reducing overdose deaths that was that largest community-based addiction research study ever conducted. Using an integrated approach, engaging with the community as experts in their own needs, and prioritizing data access, many of the study's 67 communities were able to build robust coalitions to work toward the study's goals and keep those coalitions in place after the study ended.
Our study was built upon the principle of community-engaged research, in which researchers and community members form partnerships at all stages. These partnerships included diverse community coalitions that identified strategies, developed plans for implementation, and recruited members to take the lead in addressing challenges. The coalitions included people with lived experience and were intentionally formed to have diversity in race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and professional expertise. Because of the power of these collective voices, local governments began to pay more attention to the urgency of the overdose crisis and attended coalition meetings.