Listen to this Nashman Prize nominee here
This presentation is a submission for the Nashman Prize for Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR). This approach to inquiry is aimed at informing solutions to benefit the community, through collaboration with community members in all stages of the research process, including determining the research question and inquiry method(s), data collection, and dissemination of findings.
Help select the Symposium Audience Choice Award. Click on this link to cast your vote for best Symposium presentation.
Nice presentation. I guess for more context, what are you (group members) studying? What was your motivation to research this topic? I enjoyed hearing about your research findings, but would like to know a little more about the why of your work.
Hi Maureen, thanks for the interest. We are trying to make Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) demographics and health statistics more widely available for treatment providers and the public. There is an unfortunate lack of specific demographics regarding Opioid Use Disorder due to the varied barriers to treatment. Many of these statistics are considered "essential" for medical providers and have wide reaching implications for treatment outcomes. Luckily, we were able to gain access to this EHR system which not only represents a huge portion of the DC OUD population, but also has incredibly detailed medical chart and history information on every client. We hope by publishing this detailed information it will increase the knowledge and ability to act on this crisis.
Very informative presentation! Your research seems to fill many existing gaps on the topic and is quite extensive. I'm curious, how are you planning on sharing this information with community partners to ensure this helpful information translates into changes for current policies and procedures?
Hi Shannon, thank you for the kind words. We certainly aimed to fill gaps in knowledge about opioid use and we hope the outcome of this research will improve treatment strategies for Opioid Use Disorder patients across the country.
This information has already been circulated within the hospital and medical providers which we collaborated with and we had been providing detailed reports up to that point. They will be using the paper to bolster their 1115 waiver which makes the institution medicaid eligible. Otherwise, we hope to hear back from the editor soon regarding corrections so that we can get the full manuscript published and into the hands treatment providers and policy makers.
That is great to know that the information will help providers directly and that you also have an eye on policy makers that is great. Appreciate that link and those above-it is great to hear about what brought you to the work in the responses above as well. Thanks for sharing this with us.