Grant: Operating Grant: CRISM - Opioid Crisis

Canada is experiencing a public health emergency related to medical (prescription) opioids and, in some regions, illicitly produced opioids (e.g., fentanyl, heroin). Services are being expanded in many jurisdictions, but progress is slow and only patchworks of public health interventions and treatment services are currently in place across the country. Without scaling up evidence-based programs in different regions and among different populations, the individual and population burden of opioid use will continue to be high. This proposal was written in response to CIHR’s Request for Applications to the Canadian Research Initiative on Substance Misuse (CRISM) network for a directed grant addressing the opioid emergency (https://tinyurl.com/y9sgx64x). CRISM is a unique CIHR funded national research network of researchers, system managers, people with lived experience, and decision-makers. Its purpose is to conduct research and support knowledge translation to enhance delivery of evidence-based interventions for substance misuse. CRISM will develop and execute a program in four thematic areas that have high potential for reducing the individual and population burden of opioid use: (1) scaling up public health interventions (i.e., safer consumption services and naloxone delivery); (2) optimizing opioid use disorder treatments (i.e., oral and injectable opioid pharmacotherapy); (3) improving the evidence base for withdrawal management, psychosocial and recovery-based treatment options; and (4) collaboratively developing new intervention approaches to meet the needs of high-risk target populations. The proposed implementation science program will be developed purposively, capitalizing on service innovations that are rapidly being deployed at the regional level; strategically, by developing effective longer-term working relationships with groups disproportionately affected by the opioid emergency; and collaboratively, through a structured process to engage CRISM member expertise and people with lived experience of opioid problems. The overall aim is to inform and support the implementation of an improved national intervention continuum to address this complex health challenge.