What stands in the way of cooperation between clinicians and community stakeholders responding to the opioid epidemic, and how can these obstacles be overcome?
GIM Professor of Medicine, Farr Curlin, MD, is the Principal Investigator on a research team studying just that. The team was recently awarded funding by the Greenwall Foundation for their project entitled, "Toward Effective Cooperation between Clinical and Other Community Stakeholders Committed to Stemming the Opioid Epidemic." The total funding for this project will be $216,629.
Project Team:
Principal Investigator: Farr Curlin, MD,
Co-Principal Investigator: Brett McCarty - Instructor (Temporary) of Population Health Science
Consultants: Mara Buchbinder, Andrea Clements, Warren Kinghorn
Project Summary:
This project has two aims: first, to describe the barriers to institutional collaboration among those responding to the opioid epidemic; and second, to create policy recommendations for effective collaboration in efforts to stem the opioid epidemic. In partnership with a consortium in southern Appalachia, the project will offer practical resources for clinicians and communities struggling with the opioid epidemic across the nation.
Over the past two years, scholars at Duke University have worked with stakeholders in the Tri-Cities region of Tennessee and Virginia who are now assembling to address challenges in an area where the opioid epidemic has taken a particularly devastating toll. Over the next two years, this research study will take advantage of the unique clinical laboratory to create a series of practical policy recommendations regarding how clinicians and healthcare institutions might more fruitfully engage religious and other community institutions in shared efforts to stem the opioid epidemic and heal its victims.