HEALing Communities: Columbia Scientists Tackle the Opioid Crisis in New York State

FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC; REGISTRATION REQUIRED; LIGHT BREAKFAST & COFFEE WILL BE SERVED; LIVESTREAM ALSO AVAILABLE; 1.5 CE HOURS AVAILABLE FOR A FEE
NOTE: The REGISTER button on this page is for in-person registration. To attend via Livestream, register here.

Livestream will be available from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at the following link:
https://livestream.com/accounts/3727021/events/8896476

Featuring
NABILA EL-BASSEL
University Professor and Willma and Albert Musher Professor of Social Work, Columbia University; Principal Investigator, NIH HEALing Communities Study

Introduced by
MELISSA BEGG
Dean and Professor, Columbia School of Social Work

Followed by a panel discussion with four members of the HEALing Communities research team within Columbia University:

Louisa Gilbert (bio), School of Social Work | Frances Levin (bio), Department of Clinical Psychiatry | Katherine Keyes (bio), Mailman School of Public Health | Smaranda Muresan (bio), Data Science Institute

Moderated by
MAIA SZALAVITZ

with
BETHANY MEDLEY

About the Event
At this breakfast meeting, University Professor Nabila El-Bassel (bio) will introduce the HEALing Communities Study, a major NIH-sponsored initiative to reduce fatalities from opioid overdoses across New York State. Then Maia Szalavitz (bio), journalist and author of Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction, will moderate a panel discussion among four Columbia professors from different disciplines, each of whom is a member of Professor El-Bassel’s research team. The panel will cover questions like:

• Why does the public health threat posed by the opioid crisis require a multidisciplinary approach from the nation’s top scientists?
• How does the team, which also includes researchers from major medical institutions and other top universities, intend to collaborate with local communities?
• Will their study yield findings that can be used to tackle this crisis nationwide?

At the same time, School of Social Work alumna and adjunct professor Bethany Medley (bio) will share her lived experience with opioid addiction.

About the HEALing Communities Study
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. University Professor Nabila 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. Participating schools/units within Columbia include the School of Social Work, the Department of Psychiatry, the Mailman School, and the Data Science Institute.

Questions?
Please contact swcommunications@columbia.edu.