Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Canada and the United States are facing an unprecedented public health crisis of opioid-related morbidity and mortality. The opioid epidemic is a complex problem, and one of the major drivers of this epidemic is the untreated opioid use disorder (OUD). There is limited scientific evidence regarding the individual, interpersonal, communal, and societal level factors contributing to the risk of developing OUD. Therefore, this postdoctoral research program aims to: (1) review the scientific literature on predictors of OUD for people who use opioids; and (2) build comprehensive and reliable predictive models for OUD using machine learning methods, which can overcome the critical challenges often faced by traditional statistical models when handling high-dimensional data. This postdoctoral research program will make important contributions to understanding mechanisms underlying development of OUD, informing design of impactful prevention and treatment strategies to curb the opioid overdose crisis, and ultimately improving clinical care and public health policy priority setting.