NEW: Brown University Awarded Two NIH Grants Totaling $6.8M to Combat Opioid Crisis

NEW: Brown University Awarded Two NIH Grants Totaling $6.8M to Combat Opioid Crisis

Brown University was awarded two five-year grants totaling $6.8 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to combat the opioid crisis.

Brown will use the grants to launch two projects confronting opioids in Rhode Island neighborhoods and specifically address fentanyl.

“Both projects are trying to bring innovative technologies to help solve the overdose crisis. That’s the long-term goal — to reduce the risk of overdose and to save lives,” said Brandon Marshall, an expert adviser to Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo’s Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force, and principal investigator on both projects.

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The first project will launch a partnership with the State of Rhode Island that will result in neighborhood-based intervention strategies across the state’s cities and towns.

The second project will enable researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of test strips used to detect fentanyl based on a 2018 pilot study led by Marshall.

Marshall and Dr. Elizabeth Samuels appeared on the Smart Health segment earlier this month.

The First Project

The first project, titled Preventing Overdose Using Information and Data from the Environment (PROVIDENT), expands on several years of collaboration among Brown researchers and agencies across Rhode Island.

NIH funding for PROVIDENT is expected to total $3.3 million over five years.

The project will team Brown scholars with colleagues from NYU School of Medicine and the University of California, Berkeley, to develop a machine-learning forecasting model to predict which neighborhoods in Rhode Island are most at risk for outbreaks of opioid overdose.

The Brown team will then work with the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) to test whether the model’s predictions can help deliver interventions — peer recovery coaching, opioid agonist therapy or naloxone distribution — specifically to neighborhoods that would benefit most.

“This research partnership between the talented public health professionals throughout RIDOH who are responding to the overdose epidemic and the Brown University School of Public Health, with support from the RIDOH Academic Institute, represents a cutting-edge intervention to get tools and resources related to substance-use disorder into the communities where they are needed most,” said Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, RIDOH director.

In a randomized trial, half of the state’s 39 cities and towns will be assigned PROVIDENT model predictions that will guide RIDOH’s distribution of resources, while the other half will receive interventions without the targeting of particular neighborhoods.

Second Project

The second project, titled Rhode Island Prescription and Illicit Drug Study (RAPIDS), will address fentanyl.

NIH funding for RAPIDS is expected to total $3.5 million over five years.

The RAPIDS project will consist of a randomized trial that includes individuals who use drugs and are at risk for fentanyl overdoses.

The project will test whether informing people about the dangers of fentanyl and teaching them to use the strips reduces risk of overdose.

According to Marshall, he expects the trial to launch in December of 2019, and the research team hypothesizes that the test-strips will lower overdose rates.

The project will expand significantly on the results of a 2018 pilot study that was led by Marshall. 

That study provided test strips to 93 young adults who reported injecting opioids or using heroin, cocaine or prescription pills bought off the streets. The preliminary results were promising.

“Fentanyl is about 50 to 100 times more powerful than heroin or morphine, and it’s cut into the illicit drug supply. Essentially, people can’t find pure heroin on the East Coast — nowadays, it’s all adulterated with fentanyl. In the last couple of years, we’ve seen evidence that it may be appearing in other types of illicit drugs as well,” said Marshall.

If the expanded trial indicates that strips can decrease overdose rates, Marshall and his colleagues will next evaluate the extent to which they’re disseminated, and how.