Ask the Expert: What is the HEALing Communities Study?

In this Ask the Expert interview, Dr. Redonna Chandler provides an overview of the HEALing Communities Study (HCS)–the largest addiction prevention and treatment implementation study ever conducted that tested a set of evidence-based interventions and approaches for reducing overdose deaths in communities highly impacted by the opioid crisis. Launched in 2019 through the NIH HEAL Initiative®, the study took place in 67 communities across Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio.. 

In this video, Dr. Chandler, who was the director of the HCS at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), provides an overview of:

• The Communities That HEAL (CTH) intervention: a multi-phased approach that uses data and leverages community partnerships to help inform decision-making and support the uptake of evidence-based strategies to reduce overdose deaths.

• The Overdose Reduction Continuum of Care Approach (ORCCA): a menu of evidence-based strategies proven to reduce overdoses, such as opioid education and naloxone distribution (OEND), medication treatment for opioid use disorder (MOUD), and safer opioid prescribing and dispensing practices. A toolkit of proven practices across prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery

• The Public Health Communications Campaigns: community-led campaigns focused on reducing stigma and increasing awareness about evidence-based practices to treat opioid misuse, opioid use disorder (OUD), and opioid overdose death, such as MOUD and naloxone distribution. 

"We were successful beyond our wildest dreams in helping communities... Communities implemented over 1,000 of the practices, which really demonstrates the utility of the process as well as the strategies," says Dr. Chandler.

To learn more about the HCS, click here.

To access HCS resources, click here. 

About the HEALing Communities Study

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) launched the HEALing Communities Study (HCS) in 2019 to test the impact of an integrated set of evidence-based interventions for preventing overdose and treating opioid misuse and opioid use disorder in communities highly impacted by the opioid crisis.

The primary aim of the HEALing Communities Study was to determine the impact of a data-driven intervention, known as the Communities That HEAL intervention, that engaged communities to rapidly deploy evidence-based practices to reduce opioid overdose deaths in four states (Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio).