The Center for Health Economics of Treatment Interventions for Substance Use Disorder, HCV, and HIV (CHERISH) is a multi-institutional Center of Excellence, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The Center’s mission is to develop and disseminate health economic research on healthcare utilization, health outcomes, and health-related behaviors that informs substance use disorder treatment policy and HCV and HIV care of people who use substances. To increase the impact of this research, we support research conducted at the individual, system, and community levels. The Center is a collaboration among Weill Cornell Medicine, Boston Medical Center, Boston University School of Public Health, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
CHERISH is committed to fostering an inclusive environment that will promote diversity and health equity research in the field of health economics of substance use disorders and of HCV and HIV care of people who use substances through the following goals:
- Cultivate a community of researchers that includes the diverse perspectives and experiences of our society with regards to race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual identity, disability, and socio-economic background.
- Recruit, train, and engage students, trainees, and early-stage investigators from different backgrounds, cultures, experiences, and perspectives to conduct health economics research that focuses on substance use. CHERISH will conduct targeted outreach and address barriers faced by historically underrepresented groups to conducting health economics research on substance use disorders and HCV and HIV care of people who use substances.
- Incorporate a racial and ethnic equity perspective across the research process – development of the research question; study design and implementation; and interpretation and dissemination of results – and use economic methods to examine how substance use policies and treatments affect groups that have been marginalized.
Read more about CHERISH’s diversity and inclusion initiative on the blog.