This proposal seeks to determine the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of developing anonline support and risk reduction platform to prevent opioid misuse and abuse. This is an urgent area ofresearch; opioid misuse/abuse has reached epidemic proportions in recent years. It is linked to causing thelargest drug epidemic in the history of the United States and has become the top priority of the US SurgeonGeneral. Because the opioid crisis (including heroin use) is believed to have largely originated from chronicpain patients' opioid prescriptions, this application will initially focus on the needs of chronic pain patients onopioids who are high risk for addiction and overdose. Later versions of the technology will expand to thebroader population of people affected by the opioid crisis, including heroin users. Although low cost, novel interventions are needed to reduce opioid misuse and abuse, before they lead toaddiction and fatal overdose, only 6 behavioral (non-pharmacological) randomized controlled trials have beensuccessfully conducted in this area to date (with our group having conducted one of them), creating atremendous need for solutions to the opioid crisis. Building off extensive preliminary research that our teamconducted, including piloting technology-based behavior change interventions among chronic pain patients,and developing artificial intelligence (AI)-based prediction models of opioid outcomes, we propose to designand test the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of an online peer social support and clinicalcounseling community to reduce opioid misuse/abuse among chronic pain sufferers. This is a highly innovative product with scalable commercialization potential and impact as 1) nosoftware platform exists that has been shown to reduce opioid misuse/abuse risk factors, 2) it is evidenced-based, supported by more than a decade of scientific research conducted by our team, and 3) is highlyaccessible, helping to address the time, cost, and stigma that are constant barriers to opioid prevention andtreatment. Our team includes the former CFO of Epic Systems (and two-time successful entrepreneur), the AssociateChief Medical Information Officer for Cedars-Sinai, a patent attorney at a large Silicon Valley intellectualproperty firm specializing in digital health portfolios, as well as clinical, data science/statistical, and researchexperts who conducted more than a decade of formative research leading up to this application. Funding forthis Phase 1 SBIR is needed before scaling development and testing more widely among potential healthsystem and insurer customers.
Public Health Relevance Statement: Project Narrative
Opioid misuse and abuse have reached epidemic proportions in recent years. They are linked to causing
the largest drug epidemic in the history of the United States and the top priority of the US Surgeon General in
attempting to prevent opioid overdoses. We seek to develop and test a HOPE online support community
intervention platform for patients on opioid therapy, based on our preliminary successes, and designed to
decrease opioid misuse and address this need. Our team already has extensive experience both with this area
of research as well as commercial success with technology software. Funding for this Phase 1 SBIR is needed
before scaling development and testing more widely among potential health system and insurer customers.
Project Terms: Affect ; Anxiety ; Artificial Intelligence ; AI system ; Computer Reasoning ; Machine Intelligence ; Cognitive Therapy ; Cognition Therapy ; Cognitive Psychotherapy ; cognitive behavior intervention ; cognitive behavior modification ; cognitive behavior therapy ; cognitive behavioral intervention ; cognitive behavioral modification ; cognitive behavioral therapy ; cognitive behavioral treatment ; Communities ; Counseling ; Heroin ; Diacetylmorphine ; Diamorphine ; Pharmaceutical Preparations ; Drugs ; Medication ; Pharmaceutic Preparations ; drug/agent ; Education ; Educational aspects ; Environment ; Epidemic ; Feedback ; Fentanyl ; Actiq ; Duragesic ; Fentanest ; Fentyl ; Phentanyl ; Future ; Goals ; Health ; Health behavior ; health related behavior ; Recording of previous events ; History ; Insurance Carriers ; Insurers ; Lead ; Pb element ; heavy metal Pb ; heavy metal lead ; Learning ; Mental Health ; Mental Hygiene ; Psychological Health ; opioid abuse ; opiate abuse ; opiate drug abuse ; opioid drug abuse ; Overdose ; Legal patent ; Patents ; Patients ; Physicians ; Pilot Projects ; pilot study ; Clinical Psychology ; Public Health ; Research ; Risk ; Risk Factors ; Running ; Silicon ; Si element ; Social support ; social support network ; Computer software ; Software ; Technology ; Testing ; Time ; United States ; Businesses ; Health Benefit ; Lawyers ; Attorneys ; chronic pain ; base ; improved ; Area ; Chronic ; Clinical ; Phase ; Medical ; Link ; Licensing ; Opioid ; Opiates ; satisfaction ; Funding ; Educational Intervention ; Education for Intervention ; Instruction Intervention ; Training Intervention ; instructional intervention ; Randomized Controlled Trials ; Intellectual Property ; programs ; System ; behavior change ; Prescription medication misuse ; non-medical prescription drug use ; nonmedical prescription drug use ; prescription drug misuse ; prescription misuse ; misuse of prescription only drugs ; Surgeon ; experience ; success ; Heroin Users ; novel ; Participant ; peer ; Prevention ; stigma ; social stigma ; Intervention Strategies ; interventional strategy ; Intervention ; Risk Reduction ; Effectiveness ; preventing ; prevent ; Address ; Health system ; Media Intervention ; Clinical Data ; Small Business Innovation Research Grant ; SBIR ; Small Business Innovation Research ; Development ; developmental ; Behavioral ; cost ; community intervention ; predictive modeling ; computer based prediction ; prediction model ; design ; designing ; Outcome ; Population ; innovation ; innovate ; innovative ; Health behavior change ; clinically relevant ; clinical relevance ; addiction ; addictive disorder ; commercialization ; high risk ; evidence base ; non-cancer pain ; noncancer pain ; prescription opioid ; licit opioid ; opiate medication ; opioid medication ; prescribed opiate ; prescribed opioid ; prescription opiate ; online community ; on-line community ; virtual community ; social media ; Data Science ; opioid epidemic ; opiate crisis ; opioid crisis ; opioid therapy ; opiate therapy ; opioid overdose ; opiate overdose ; opiate related overdose ; opioid drug overdose ; opioid induced overdose ; opioid intoxication ; opioid medication overdose ; opioid poisoning ; opioid related overdose ; opioid toxicity ; pain patient ; chronic pain patient ; patient with chronic pain ; opioid user ; Opiate user ; Opioid drug user ; PWUO ; people who use opioids ; persons who use opioids ; Nonpharmacologic Therapy ; Non-pharmacologic Therapy ; heroin use ; heroin intake ; opioid misuse ; non-medical opioid use ; nonmedical opioid use ; opiate misuse ; Facebook ; digital health ; patients who use opioids ; opioid patient ; feasibility testing ; substance use ; substance using ; Helping to End Addiction Long-term ; HEAL Initiative ; Helping End Addiction Long-term ; Helping End Addiction Longterm ; Helping to End Addiction Longterm ;
