Columbia awarded grant for opioid education and naloxone training on college campuses

March 28, 2019 — Rachel Shelton, ScD, MPH, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health assistant professor of Sociomedical Sciences, and Lisa Rosen-Metsch, PhD, dean of Columbia University’s School of General Studies, received a planning grant award to focused on piloting Opioid Education and Naloxone Training on College Campuses. The three-month planning grant was awarded in January 2019 through the Irving Institute CTSA at Columbia University pilot Collaborative and Multidisciplinary Pilot Research Awards (CaMPR). The co-principal investigators will collaborate with a multi-disciplinary research group including Columbia Health, New York State Psychiatric Institute, and other investigators across the Columbia campus, to establish a platform for disseminating and implementing innovative evidence-based practices and programs that address the opioid epidemic and provide naloxone training nationally.

The use of opioids among college students has been recognized as a critical area where implementation of evidence-based public health strategies are needed, and naloxone training and opioid education is becoming a central training competency for law enforcement and emergency medical personnel. This planning grant will be an important first step in bringing together new and novel collaborations and expertise in informing this research.

“College campuses are an important, yet understudied and underutilized context for opioid education and naloxone training,” said Shelton. “Universities nationally have differed in their response to naloxone on who should be trained and what protocols are established in reacting to an overdose. Research is needed to determine the acceptability, feasibility, adoption, and implementation of opioid awareness education and naloxone training programs on college campuses.”

A social and behavioral scientist with expertise in implementation science, Shelton’s research focuses on understanding how social and contextual factors contribute to health disparities, and factors that influence the implementation and sustainability of evidence-based programs and practices in real-world clinical and community settings.

Rosen-Metsch, inaugural Stephen Smith Professor and former chair of the Department of Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School, is now Dean of the School of General Studies on Columbia’s Morningside campus. An internationally-recognized leader in the prevention of HIV among populations with substance abuse disorders, she was one of the first researchers in the era of antiretroviral therapy to articulate the importance of creating prevention/primary care programs for people living with HIV.

The work being conducted as part of this research also supports an important component of the Columbia-JED strategic plan, charged with ensuring that substance use policies and protocols support the student community. Prevention measures, including training for first responders and members of the community to respond to substance use, are a key action item in this plan.
 

Co -investigators include: Edward Nunes, MD, Department of Psychiatry; Melanie Bernitz, MD, MPH, Columbia Health, Center for Family and Community Medicine; Michael McNeil, EdD, Columbia Health, Department of Sociomedical Sciences; and Carrigan Parish, DMD, PhD, Department of Sociomedical Science

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Founded in 1922, the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health pursues an agenda of research, education, and service to address the critical and complex public health issues affecting New Yorkers, the nation and the world. The Columbia Mailman School is the third largest recipient of NIH grants among schools of public health. Its over 450 multi-disciplinary faculty members work in more than 100 countries around the world, addressing such issues as preventing infectious and chronic diseases, environmental health, maternal and child health, health policy, climate change & health, and public health preparedness. It is a leader in public health education with over 1,300 graduate students from more than 40 nations pursuing a variety of master’s and doctoral degree programs. The Columbia Mailman School is also home to numerous world-renowned research centers, including ICAP and the Center for Infection and Immunity. For more information, please visit http://www.mailman.columbia.edu.

The Columbia University School of General Studies (GS) is the premier liberal arts college in the United States for nontraditional students seeking a rigorous, traditional, Ivy League undergraduate degree. GS students take the same courses, study with the same faculty, and earn the same degree as all other undergraduates at Columbia University.