1.a. The proposed project will address a preeminent public health challenge that is acute and immediate: developing innovative commercial digital solutions to positively affect fundamental risk factors associated with health disparities and social determinants of health (SDOH) experienced by communities afflicted with substance use disorder (SUD). With an alarming 81,000 overdose deaths recorded in the 12 months ending on May 2020, it is clear that the current national opioid epidemic is being accelerated and worsened by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As these dual health emergencies collide, communities that are negatively impacted by health disparities remain disproportionately at higher risk for substance use disorders. At the same time, ensuring sufficient and equitable access to SUD prevention and treatment services remains a significant challenge, and few if any tools exist to provide actionable business and public health intelligence needed by different SUD stakeholders, including government agencies, corporate employers, and technology companies, about where and what types of prevention and treatment services are needed. In response, this project will conceptualize, develop and pilot test a multimodal digital tool that will create a comprehensive nationwide database of SUD treatment facilities, combined with an analytical health disparities data layer that can enable SUD-related intelligence. The tool will generate actionable insights on where SUD treatment capacity is insufficient and in turn reduce health disparities related to improving access to SUD treatment specific to priority minority populations and underserved communities. The project will use technology approaches in big data, predictive modeling, and custom data visualization and has the following project aims: Milestone 1: Use advanced methods of data mining to identify and collate a national SUD treatment facility database that includes specific community and business characteristics of interest; Milestone 2: Join, integrate, and analyze SUD treatment facility data with existing demographic, economic, social, and health disparity-related data to enable identification of communities at highest risk of health-related SUDs including a specific focus on identifying communities with insufficient treatment access; and Milestone 3: Build a web-hosted MVP data visualization solution to enable actionable public health and business intelligence identifying SUD health disparity treatment access risks and target use of the solution for customer segments including government agencies, corporate employers, and technology companies. This is a critical opportunity to directly address health disparities related to SUD by developing an innovative digital tool that can help ensure sufficient access to prevention and treatment services in communities who have the greatest need.
Public Health Relevance Statement: 1.b. PROJECT NARRATIVE. With a reported 81,000 overdose deaths recorded in the 12 months ending on May 2020, it is clear that the national opioid epidemic has accelerated due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. This places communities already suffering from health disparities and social determinants of health at higher risk for substance use disorder, while prevention and treatment access also experiences significant challenges. In response, the proposed project will leverage advanced methods in big data, machine learning, and data visualization to conceptualize, develop and pilot a multimodal tool that identifies current and future SUD treatment needs and capacity gaps for communities at risk for health disparity related SUDs.
Project Terms: Outcome; social disadvantage; social inequality; social disparities; Population; innovate; innovative; innovation; ethnic minority group; ethnic minority individual; ethnic minority people; ethnic minority population; addictive disorder; addiction; commercialization; high risk; multi-modality; multimodality; overdose fatalities; overdose death; health equity; public health emergency; population health; social health determinants; BigData; Big Data; data visualization; opiate use disorder; opioid use disorder; Decrease disparity; Lower disparity; mitigate disparity; reduce disparity; reduction in disparity; disparity reduction; opiate crisis; opioid crisis; opioid epidemic; treatment services; Big Data Analytics; Big Data Tools; Big Data Methods; social vulnerability; COVID19; CV-19; CV19; corona virus disease 2019; coronavirus disease 2019; coronavirus disease-19; coronavirus infectious disease-19; COVID-19; COVID crisis; COVID epidemic; COVID pandemic; COVID-19 crisis; COVID-19 epidemic; COVID-19 global health crisis; COVID-19 global pandemic; COVID-19 health crisis; COVID-19 public health crisis; COVID19 crisis; COVID19 epidemic; COVID19 global health crisis; COVID19 global pandemic; COVID19 health crisis; COVID19 pandemic; COVID19 public health crisis; SARS-CoV-2 epidemic; SARS-CoV-2 global health crisis; SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic; SARS-CoV-2 pandemic; SARS-CoV2 epidemic; SARS-CoV2 pandemic; SARS-coronavirus-2 epidemic; SARS-coronavirus-2 pandemic; Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 epidemic; Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 pandemic; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 epidemic; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic; corona virus disease 2019 epidemic; corona virus disease 2019 pandemic; coronavirus disease 2019 crisis; coronavirus disease 2019 epidemic; Acceleration; Affect; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.); Centers for Disease Control; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; United States Centers for Disease Control; United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Client; Communities; Cessation of life; Death; Death Records; Pharmaceutical Preparations; Drugs; Medication; Pharmaceutic Preparations; drug/agent; Economics; economic; Emergency Situation; Emergencies; Face; faces; facial; Future; Geography; Government Agencies; Health; Health Services Accessibility; Access to Care; access to health services; access to services; access to treatment; accessibility to health services; availability of services; care access; health service access; health services availability; service availability; treatment access; Intelligence; Investments; Low Income Population; Low income group; low income individual; low income people; Maps; Methods; Minority Groups; Minority People; Minority Population; Minority individual; United States National Institutes of Health; NIH; National Institutes of Health; Outpatients; Out-patients; Overdose; Personal Satisfaction; well-being; wellbeing; Private Sector; Public Health; Race; Races; racial; racial background; racial origin; Research; Risk; Risk Factors; Social Conditions; Societal Conditions; Social Environment; social climate; social context; socioenvironment; socioenvironmental; Social support; social support network; Substance Use Disorder; substance use and disorder; Technology; Time; Work; Measures; Businesses; Socio-economic status; socio-economic position; socioeconomic position; Socioeconomic Status; Treatment Cost; Caring; customs; Custom; improved; Acute; incarcerated; incarceration; Imprisonment; Link; Ensure; disability; insight; homeless; unhoused; Homelessness; Individual; Data Bases; data base; Databases; Ethnicity; Ethnic Origin; WWW; web; world wide web; Internet; tool; Machine Learning; machine based learning; Complex; System; Country; interest; Services; experience; disorder prevention; disease prevention; prevention service; Prevention; Reporting; social; Substance abuse problem; abuse of substances; substance abuse; response; social stigma; stigma; disparity in health; health disparity; data mining; datamining; Address; Data; Improve Access; Interruption; National Institute of Drug Abuse; NIDA; National Institute on Drug Abuse; Funding Opportunities; Characteristics; minority health; drug relapse; treatment center; digital; computer based prediction; prediction model; predictive modeling; designing; design; coronavirus disease 2019 global health crisis; coronavirus disease 2019 global pandemic; coronavirus disease 2019 health crisis; coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic; coronavirus disease 2019 public health crisis; coronavirus disease crisis; coronavirus disease epidemic; coronavirus disease pandemic; coronavirus disease-19 global pandemic; coronavirus disease-19 pandemic; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 global health crisis; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 global pandemic; COVID-19 pandemic; implementation intervention; substance use treatment; Economically Deprived; economically disadvantaged; economic disparity; under served community; underserved community; demographic disparity; disparity elimination; eliminate disparities; eliminating disparities; Health Disparities Research; Health disparities related research; health disparities science; Reduce health disparities; Decrease health disparities; Health disparity mitigation; Health disparity reduction; Lower health disparities; Mitigate health disparities; pilot test; COVID-19 impact; COVID-19 affected; COVID-19 consequence; COVID-19 effect; COVID-19 impacted; coronavirus disease 2019 consequence; coronavirus disease 2019 effect; coronavirus disease 2019 impact; coronavirus disease-19 impact; racial minority population; racial minority group; racial minority individual; racial minority people; Equity; digital technology; digital tool; digital platform
