Greater Intermountain Node (CTN-0151)

In 2019, the University of Utah’s (UU) Greater Intermountain Node (GIN) expanded the existing NIH NIDA Clinical Trial Network’s (CTN) infrastructure by developing and testing innovative approaches for preventing, intervening, and treating opioid use disorder (OUD); preventing overdose; expanding settings for CTN research; and bringing new research acumen to the CTN. GIN successfully brought research and methodological expertise to 3 areas of focus of OUD research: (1) non-addiction-specialty health care settings, (2) large health care systems of care, and (3) implementation science. GIN’s transdisciplinary leadership team and infrastructure has demonstrated a proven history of CTN grant productivity and addiction scholarship. We seek to continue to evolve GIN into a regional and national addiction science hub to expand CTN’s investigative reach to new faculty, organizations, and persons with limited resources. GIN will evolve its mission to expand the existing CTN infrastructure by developing and testing innovative interventions to prevent and treat substance use disorders (SUDs) and prevent overdose, expanding settings for CTN research, and bringing new/needed SUD expertise to regional/national communities. To accomplish this, we will evolve our prior OUD-centered foci to a GIN Research Agenda of broader SUD foci: (1) research in non-addiction-specialty care settings, (2) addiction research with persons with limited resources, and (3) research to inform addiction health services/care policy. GIN’s focus of research in non-addiction-specialty care settings will enable the CTN to continue a paramount line of research within novel settings, that is, settings outside the traditional milieu of specialty addiction treatment. GIN’s focus of addiction research with persons with limited resources will enable CTN to expand its research to address SUD within populations and communities that face poor health outcomes. GIN’s focus of research to inform addiction health services/care policy will enable CTN access to existing public and commercial administrative health care databases to facilitate the field’s understanding of addiction policies and reduce policy challenges to implementation of outcome-driven practices. GIN will achieve the following 4 GIN AIMS: AIM1: Enhance CTN’s ability to conduct research in GIN’s Research Agenda; AIM2: Enhance the CTN’s ability to train the next generation of investigators (Training Agenda); AIM3: Enhance the CTN’s ability to reach new patient populations and organizations serving those populations (Community Engagement Agenda); AIM4: Enhance our ability to disseminate our research and research impacts to the public and research communities (Dissemination Agenda). Through GINs new Research, Training, Community Engagement, and Dissemination Agendas, GIN is poised to confront the SUD challenges that confront the nation. This project is part of the NIH’s Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) initiative to speed scientific solutions to the national opioid public health crisis. The NIH HEAL Initiative bolsters research across NIH to improve treatment for opioid misuse and addiction.