News & Blog
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 […]
People who use drugs (PWUD) are among the most vulnerable populations for COVID-19. 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 […]
Study Finds Wide State Variation in Opioid Prescribing, Dosages 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 […]
July 17, 2020
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 […]
Approximately 1.6 million US adults used methamphetamine each year from 2015 to 2018, many of whom had co-occurring substance use or mental illness. Higher rates of methamphetamine use were concentrated in non-urban areas, which raises concerns due to limited substance use treatment availability in outside of urban areas. Stimulant use is associated with increased risk […]
Easing regulatory restrictions due to Covid-19 may provide solutions 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 […]