CHERISH Awarded NIDA Center of Excellence Grant to Address Growing Complexities of Substance Use Disorder, HCV, and HIV

The economic burden of the syndemic of SUD, HCV, and HIV is significant. SUD alone is estimated to cost more than $700 billion per year in the U.S. To support decisions about embracing new approaches, CHERISH assists researchers in considering both clinical and economic outcomes.

“Economic evaluations can provide a holistic view of an intervention’s costs and benefits, from multiple decision-maker perspectives,” said Sean Murphy, who will newly serve as the CHERISH co-director. “SUD interventions can be costly from a payer’s perspective, which is why it is critical that it is viewed alongside relevant downstream cost-offsets and non-financial benefits, such as improved quality-of-life,” Murphy explained.

In the new cycle, CHERISH will develop research to support the financial sustainability of SUD interventions, advance research methodologies, and accelerate the knowledge translation and exchange of information between researchers and decision makers. The next five years build on previous grant cycles where CHERISH led research to inform the integration of substance use treatment into systems of care and captured the economic and clinical impact of SUD and HCV/HIV interventions at the individual-, system-, and community-level.

CHERISH continues to strengthen foundational research partnerships across Weill Cornell Medicine, Boston Medical Center, Boston University School of Public Health, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and welcomes new colleagues.

Joining from Weill Cornell Medicine, Ali Jalali will serve as the CHERISH Methodology Core co-director and bring his expertise in advanced econometric and statistical methods. From the University of Connecticut, Linda Sprague Martinez and Gillian Betz will bring expertise in Delphi implementation methods and assist the CHERISH Population Data & Modeling Core with identifying population-level variables. Jonathan Purtle from New York University and Julia Hinckley, Karl Stark, and M Davis from the University of Pennsylvania will enhance the CHERISH Dissemination & Policy Core through policy engagement strategies and implementation science research.

“Our combined expertise as health economists, simulation modelers, clinician researchers, dissemination scientists, and policy experts play synergistic roles in sharpening our data collection and analysis, and the dissemination of findings about the care of people with SUD, HCV, and HIV,” said Benjamin Linas, who will direct the CHERISH Population Data & Modeling Core with Jake Morgan, the newly appointed core co-director, with the support of Dimitri Baptiste and Hana Zwick from the Syndemics Lab.

Responding to the rapidly changing SUD and related HCV/HIV landscape requires extensive collaboration between clinical and health economics researchers, ongoing communication with decision makers, and career mentorship within the field.

“There’s only a small pool of researchers that has the requisite training and expertise to conduct cross-disciplinary health economics research,” said Yuhua Bao, who will serve as the new CHERISH Pilot Grant, Training & Mentoring Core director. “This pool is only going to dwindle unless we make deliberate efforts in training and mentoring,” Bao added. To address the gap, CHERISH will continue to provide support through pilot grant awards, health economics methods training, and targeted mentoring, and will build connections through the CHERISH Research Affiliates program, a national network of SUD economics and health services research experts.

To turn evidence into practice, CHERISH will host seminars to facilitate critical conversations with leaders at the federal, state, and local level. “Maintaining channels for constructive dialogue will be critical as both the syndemic and the financing mechanisms for health care evolve,” said Zachery Meisel, CHERISH Dissemination & Policy Core director.