HEALING Communities: Columbia Scientists Tackle the Opioid Crisis in New York State (11/18/2019)

This panel discussion features four members of the HEALing Communities research team within Columbia University: Louisa Gilbert of the Columbia School of Social Work; Frances Levin of the Department of Clinical Psychiatry; Katherine Keyes of the Mailman School of Public Health; and Smaranda Muresan of the Data Science Institute.

It is moderated by Maia Szalavitz, independent journalist and author of "Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction," along with Bethany Medley, alumna and adjunct professor. Both women have lived experience with addiction.

The discussion was hosted by Nabila El-Bassel, University Professor and Willma and Albert Musher Professor of Social Work at Columbia University and principal investigator of the NIH HEALing Communities Study, and introduced by Melissa Begg, dean of the Columbia School of Social Work.

Columbia University is one of four sites involved in the HEALing Communities Study set up by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to tackle the nation’s opioid crisis, with the goal of reducing fatalities by 40 percent in three years. El-Bassel and her colleagues received an $86 million grant—the largest-ever grant for Morningside Campus and the largest NIH grant in the history of Columbia University—to tackle this crisis in 16 of the most heavily burdened counties in New York State.