CTBH has received a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to continue to lead the Northeast Node of the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN) for 7 more years. The NIDA CTN is a research partnership in which NIDA, researchers, healthcare providers, policymakers, payors and community members develop, evaluate and implement novel prevention and treatment models for substance use disorders (SUDs). The Northeast Node largely works with a large network of partners across the states of New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine and also collaborates with the other 15 CTN Nodes across the US to conduct multi-site research studies to address the nation’s most pressing SUD needs.
These studies span topics of: examining the feasibility of implementing a pharmacist-integrated model of medication treatment for opioid use disorder (MOUD), building opioid recovery support networks to engage and retain young adults in MOUD, and harnessing digital health to understand clinical trajectories of individuals with opioid use disorder. Among these studies, the Northeast Node was the first to identify digital biomarkers of relapse to opioid use and MOUD non-adherence among individuals in outpatient MOUD treatment.
In this next phase of funding, the Northeast Node will focus on identifying the most significant and timely substance use needs in our communities, leading and partnering on rigorous and innovative research projects to tackle these challenges, and scaling-up and sustaining best practices in our nation. Among these topics, the Northeast Node will build on CTBH’s long-standing expertise in digital health to develop and test the clinical utility of digital health technologies (e.g., sensor-based technologies, digital therapeutics) in improving engagement, assessment, personalized treatment, clinical outcomes and capacity for SUD treatment as well as expand our line of research on scaling effective SUD resources for youth, including science-based substance use prevention via “serious games”.