CHERISH is a multi-institutional Center of Excellence funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) with a mission of developing and disseminating health economic research on healthcare utilization, health outcomes, and health-related behaviors to help shape treatment policies for substance use disorders as well as HCV and HIV care for substance users.

“Colleagues come from NY, Boston, and Philadelphia to enjoy the tropics in December and the Latin American cuisine,” said Kathryn E. McCollister, Ph.D., Professor, and Director of the Division of Health Services Research and Policy at DPHS.

The meeting was divided into two portions: a morning leadership meeting and an afternoon research seminar.

The leadership meeting focused on CHERISH’s work in their five Cores: Dissemination and Policy, Population Data and Modeling, Pilot Grant and Training, Methodology, and Administrative. Dr. McCollister is the Director of the Methodology Core, which is located at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Weill Cornell Medicine.

As experts in budget impact analyses, cost-benefit, and cost-effectiveness assessments, the main focus of the Methodology Core is the outcome and implementation of research at the individual, system, and community levels.

“The Methodology Core provides researchers with guidance on how to plan, carry out and analyze economic assessments of treatment for substance use disorders, as well as HCV and HIV among people who use substances,” said Dr. McCollister. With an emphasis on intervention implementation and adaptive interventions, the Core also develops and employs methodologies to support economic assessments for drug use disorder, HCV, and HIV.

Time was also spent discussing potential areas of focus for CHERISH’s renewal application.

Members of the IDEA exchange clinic team led the research seminar, which discussed how IDEA is expanding to include a variety of services such as mobile health and medications for opioid use disorder.

CHERISH leadership was recently awarded a 5-year Modeling and Economic Resource Center (MERC) as part of the NIDA HEAL Data2Action (HEAL D2A) initiative with Bruce Schackman, Ph.D., Ben Linas, M.D., M.P.H., and Dr. McCollister as Principal Investigators. The MERC aims are:

• To assist with the implementation of modeling techniques, cost analysis, and behavioral economic strategies for Innovation Projects through methodological consultation.
• To develop tools that can be readily used by Innovation Projects to make informed decisions about the costs of different implementation interventions and to inform the design of suitable payment systems that support sustainability.
• To apply meta-modeling techniques so that simulation model results generated for one system or community can be adapted for other systems/communities or modified when local circumstances change.
• To conduct innovative research utilizing cutting-edge modeling and economic strategies.

CHERISH will also be hosting the 2023 Addiction Health Services Research (AHSR) meeting in New York in October of 2023.

Written by Deycha Torres Hernández

Published on January 31, 2023