The HEALing Communities Study (HCS) is a research study aimed to reduce opioid and overdose deaths across New York State by 40% in three years. Launched by NIH, the HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-termSM) Initiative is an aggressive, trans-agency effort to speed scientific solutions to stem the national opioid public health crisis.
2019 – Ongoing
PI: Nabila El-Bassel
More about the HEALing Communities Study
The HEALing Communities Study (HCS) is an NIH-funded effort to reduce overdose deaths in New York and three other highly-impacted states. It was built with a multi-agency, multi-disciplinary approach. Community partners include government agencies, non-profits, the medical field, and people with lived experience.
Background
In 2019, the School of Social Work received an $86 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to spearhead an ambitious multi-year effort to reduce opioid overdose deaths in New York State. The effort, part of a nationwide research study on how to address the opioid crisis, is being led by SIG Director and University Professor Dr. Nabila El-Bassel, and brings together Columbia’s School of Social Work, the Department of Psychiatry, the Mailman School of Public Health, the Data Science Institute, as well as researchers from Albert Einstein School of Medicine/Montefiore Health System, City University of New York, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York University School of Medicine, University of Miami, and Yale School of Medicine.
- Visit the official HEALing Communities website
- Read more about the launch
- Watch the WNBC news story on HEALing Communities
- Watch the HEALing Communities Introductory Event: Columbia Scientists Tackle the Opioid Crisis in New York State
- Watch a HEALing Update with Dr. Aimee Campbell
- View the first in the HEALing Communities event series featuring Drs. Bruce Schackman and Laura Starbird: Economic Evaluation of Integrated Opioid Overdoses Reduction Interventions
- Learn more about HEALing in this graphic
HEALing Communities Study Research Updates
- Publication: "Addressing long overdue social and structural determinants of the opioid overdose crisis"
- Publication: Researchers share how a pandemic-proof study operates
- Interview: Motivated to Save Lives: An interview with Cayuga County's Monika Salvage
- Interview: Diversification of Outreach Through HEALing Communities in Putnam County
- Interview: Preventing Overdose Deaths During COVID-19 (Ulster County)
- Interview of HCS leadership by CSSW on COVID-19 and lessons learned
- Launch of Fourth Campaign: How Medication for Opioid Use Disorder Saves Lives
- Interview: How One Community is Pursuing an Opioid Court to Address the Overdose Epidemic
- Can Reimagining the Criminal / Legal System Response Reduce Overdose Deaths?
- Publication: Community-level determinants of stakeholder perceptions of community stigma toward people with opioid use disorders, harm reduction services and treatment in the HEALing Communities Study
- Publication: An Approach to Enhancing Medication Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder in the HEALing Communities Study
- Publication: Simulating the simultaneous impact of medication for opioid use disorder and naloxone on opioid overdose death in eight New York counties
- Publication: Effects of the Communities that Heal (CTH) intervention on perceived opioid-related community stigma in the HEALing Communities Study: results of a multi-site, community-level, cluster-randomized trial
- Publication: Cost of start-up activities to implement a community-level opioid overdose reduction intervention in the HEALing Communities Study
- Publication: Effect of the Communities That HEAL intervention on receipt of behavioral therapies for opioid use disorder: A cluster randomized wait-list controlled trial
- Publication: Community-led approaches to making naloxone available in public settings: Implementation experiences in the HEALing communities study
- Publication: Community-Based Cluster-Randomized Trial to Reduce Opioid Overdose Deaths
- Publication: Effect of the Communities That HEAL Intervention on Naloxone Distribution: A Cluster Randomized Wait-list Controlled Trial
- Publication: Communities That HEAL Intervention and Mortality Including Polysubstance Overdose Deaths: A Randomized Clinical Trial
- Publication: Development of a brief stigma and perceptions questionnaire for pharmacists: An exploratory factor analysis approach in New York state counties enrolled in the healing communities study
- Publication: Stigma and efficacy beliefs regarding opioid use disorder treatment and naloxone in communities participating in the HEALing Communities Study intervention
HEALing Communities in the Media
2024 (partial list)
- Sullivan County fights highest-in-state overdose rate
- New York’s Peer-led Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution Programs Help Build Trusted Relationships, Save Lives
- Opioids, AI and a plan to save lives
- UK’s HEAL grant didn’t meet overdose death reduction goal, but still counts successes
- Study finds data-driven intervention did not impact opioid-related overdose death rates over evaluation period
- Community Intervention for Opioid Overdose Falls Flat, but Also Faced Challenges
- Ambitious federal study failed to curb opioid deaths, NIH announces
- Ambitious federal effort to curb overdoses shows no impact on deaths, initial study finds
- $344 Million NIH-Funded Intervention Fails To Reduce Opioid Overdose Deaths
- Community intervention did not lower opioid deaths like researchers hoped, federal study shows
- Here's What a Massive New NIH Addiction Study Found
- Expanding Evidence-Based Practices to Prevent Opioid Overdose Deaths
- Study aimed at reducing opioid overdose deaths presents results
2023 (partial list)
- Wider access to Narcan helps rural communities fight overdose deaths
- Commentary: Death certificate delays hurt New York's opioid fight
- Healing Cayuga: County uses data to reduce ODs, launches public dashboard
- HEALing Genesee banks on proven strategies to reduce opioid-related overdose fatalities
- County Remains Committed To Fight Addiction
- Risky business: Opioid use and dealing with the consequences
2022 (partial list)
- HEALing Communities: No one is disposable
- Salvage: Two years of HEALing work in Cayuga County
- HEALing Communities: Changing how we talk about addiction
- This Epidemic Also Mutates
- HEALing Communities: Cayuga Crisis Line expanding to substance use calls
- HEALing Communities: The importance of Narcan in times of fentanyl
- Salvage: Sustaining the HEALing Communities Study's impact
- Commentary: Data on overdose deaths is key to intervention
- Columbia, County partner on naloxone awareness
- Reps from The National Institute on Drug Abuse, Columbia visit county