Progress-to-date

Our progress to date

In October 2017, Indiana University announced the Responding to the Addictions Crisis Grand Challenge, the university's part in helping tackle the ongoing addictions crisis sweeping the nation. Since that time, the initiative has improved care for people with substance use disorder, trained students, faculty and healthcare workers in better pain management approaches, educated the community on stigma, and more. 

Read more below about the impact the Responding to the Addictions Crisis Grand Challenge is having on the state. 

We have: 

• Formed over 160 partnerships with over 100 unique partner organizations in 34 counties throughout the state.
• Developed a Referral to Treatment Tool to more efficiently identify treatment centers for outpatient referrals. 
• Created three new certificate and degree programs to increase the workforce in addiction counseling.
• Improved care for 208 women and young mothers with substance use disorders by hiring and training eight community members as peer recovery coaches or addictions specialists through the CARE Plus project, which links pregnant mothers with addiction to recovery resources.
• Launched the Comprehensive Pain Assessment Clinic at the IU Family Medicine Center in Indianapolis to educate future prescribers and other health professionals for management, prevention, and intervention of pain control and SUD as a chronic disease. Through the clinic, more than 90 people have been educated on improved pain control and 34 students have been trained in pain control.
• Trained more than 1,400 health science, social work, and education students in cross-disciplinary approaches to pain management. 
• Reduced the likelihood of future substance use for 169 youth who can now better control their emotions through a school-based program aimed at helping youth develop skills to handle stresses. 
• Partnered with Overdose Lifeline to train more than 100 community members to save a life by using naloxone to resuscitate an unconscious person that has taken opioids to prevent death.
• Launched 10 ECHO groups focused on integrated pain management, HIV, Hepatitis C, LGBTQ+ patients, cancer prevention and survivorship, peer education in correctional facilities, Indiana communities advancing recovery efforts, community-wide COVID-19 response, COVID response in nursing homes, and the Regional Judiciary Opioid Initiative. These training sessions have provided 2,786 healthcare providers from over 700 organizations. This includes including nearly 600 who have earned certified health education specialist (CHES) credits through the ECHO project.
• Trained 60 community mental health center staff providers in evidence-based intervention techniques to reduce substance use among justice system-involved youth in Wayne and Tippecanoe Counties through the Improving the Substance Use Care Cascade in the Juvenile Justice System project.
• Partnered with the Indiana State Museum on the FIX exhibit, aimed at reducing stigma around substance use disorder.
• Partnered with the Indianapolis Coalition for Patient Safety to create a video series and discussion guide to enhance discussion of addiction by community members. The project expanded into two, free online courses aimed at reducing stigma against substance use disorder. To date, 876 nurses and community members have enrolled in the courses.
• Published 113 scholarly articles. 
• Hired five new tenure-track faculty; 14 new postdocs, scientists, and research associates; and 45 key personnel and funded 68 graduate students 18 undergraduate students. 
• Held 166 public events including academic conferences, panels, and workshops
• Applied for 5 patent applications, including 1 international patent application for novel synthetic drug testing and monitoring technology.
• Researchers have engaged over 3,000 study participants and trained over 3,500 workers.
• So far, 16 teams secured external awards as a result of their AGC-funded research, securing 65 awards totaling $30.2 million.