University of Alabama at Birmingham: UAB psychologist to serve on a $21 million NIH initiative to advance research about opioid crisis

Burel Goodin, Ph.D., professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham College of Arts and Sciences’College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Psychology, is part of a group that has been awarded $21 million from the National Institute of Health HEAL Initiative – Helping to End Addiction Long-term to establish a new national center aimed at disseminating accurate information about the opioid crisis to the public.

Goodin will serve as co-investigator of the new HEAL Research Dissemination and Engagement Center, which will aim to deliver lay-friendly, culturally appropriate information on the latest scientific findings to communities most affected by the pain, opioid and overdose crises. Building bridges of collaboration between research partners to best impact the affected communities is a key component of HEAL.

Goodin and team will receive more than $2.6 million during the first year to lead the project’s community and stakeholder engagement efforts. At UAB, Goodin serves as the co-director of the Center for Addiction and Pain Prevention and Intervention, a campus-collaborative center focused on improving the understanding of substance use, pain and their intersection throughout the translational science spectrum.

“This award will help support the mission of CAPPI to engage community stakeholders so that we might provide them with important HEAL-funded research findings,” Goodin said. “I hope this award will ultimately help improve prevention and treatment strategies for opioid misuse and addiction, as well as enhance pain management.”

NIH HEAL, an aggressive effort to speed scientific solutions to stem the national opioid public health crisis, was launched in 2018. The initiative is focused on improving prevention and treatment strategies for opioid misuse and addiction, as well as enhancing pain management. The center is co-led by the Duke Clinical Research Institute and George Mason University’s HEAL Accelerator Team, which includes UAB, the Addiction Policy Forum, the Oregon Social Learning Center, the University of Wisconsin, Temple University and the University of North Texas Health Science Center.