News

“X-the X Waiver” has been the slogan used by physicians and public health advocates fighting for greater access to buprenorphine, a medication proven to treat opioid use disorder (OUD) with higher effectiveness than many other treatments. Despite being safe, however, buprenorphine is tightly regulated, and to prescribe it, health care providers need a permit (the X-waiver) […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way individuals access the healthcare system. For example, recent studies suggest high-risk populations may be foregoing necessary care out of fear of entering healthcare facilities and contracting the virus. A new study by Sean Murphy, PhD, associate professor of population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine and director of the methodology core […]

COVID-19 has brought simulation modeling to the foreground of public discourse, as policy makers and stakeholders project the effects of different interventions to “flatten the curve.” Simulation models allow investigators to tinker with different conditions of the world to observe how they affect future outcomes; however, translating the models’ results to the public can be […]

According to a new study, the total annual cost of opioid use disorder (OUD) to U.S. society in 2018 was $786.8 billion. This figure includes costs associated with excess healthcare expenditures, criminal justice resources, lost workplace and home productivity, and premature mortality. Of the $786.8 billion, $89.1 billion was attributed to additional healthcare expenditures. The study […]

Injection-related infective endocarditis (IE) is a serious and expensive medical complication among people who inject drugs (PWID). In some states, such as North Carolina there has been a 12-fold increase in injection-related IE between 2007 and 2017. Approximately 1.3% of people who inject drugs report IE within the past year, and between 0.5% and 11.8% report IE […]

HIV outbreaks in Indiana, West Virginia, and Massachusetts have highlighted the need to rapidly identify and treat HIV infections among people who use drugs and their social networks in order to prevent disease transmission. Many state and local health departments have expanded their fourth generation laboratory-based HIV testing capacity that allows them to identify acute […]

They have increased prevalence of pre-existing co-morbidities that may increase their risk of a negative outcome following COVID-19 exposure, for example respiratory and cardiovascular diseases due to smoking cigarettes, marijuana, or other substances. Syringe service programs (SSPs) not only provide sterile injection equipment to PWUD, but also other health services such as HIV and hepatitis C […]

In our new study in BMJ Open, we show that in 2015-2019 more than 70% of U.S. opioid-naive patients received an opioid prescription after knee arthroscopy. They received an average of 40 tablets, despite recent studies showing most patients end up taking less than 5 tablets. The take-home message? Despite recent attention to opioid stewardship, we find wide variation […]

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) of the National Institutes of Health has awarded the Center for Health Economics of Treatment Interventions for Substance Use, HCV and HIV (CHERISH) a five-year grant to continue the Center’s activities as a national center of excellence. CHERISH was founded in 2015 as a multi-institutional center for health […]

“Dr. Kathryn McCollister’s input strengthened our application and we look forward to collaborating on this important and timely project that will provide valuable information on both the effectiveness and cost of this mHealth intervention.” Dr. Adam Carrico Approximately 1.6 million US adults used methamphetamine each year from 2015 to 2018, many of whom had co-occurring […]

An opioid overdose is significantly more than an isolated event. Patients who present to the emergency department (ED) with overdose have a 6 percent risk of dying in the following year. As with other high-risk acute conditions, we expect patients who survive overdose to receive evidence-based treatment after leaving the hospital. Whether the overdose was due to prescription […]

Ali Jalali, PhD Dr. Ali Jalali is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College. He completed his doctorate in economics at the University of Utah. His current research focuses on economic evaluations of interventions for substance use disorders and related conditions. His pilot grant will examine healthcare […]