2020 Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit

The opioid epidemic is multifaceted and wide-reaching. It presents challenges for numerous industries, affects a diverse population, and calls for interdisciplinary solutions. From April 14–16, more than 3,500 industry experts from around the country will gather virtually for the 2020 Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit to discuss evidence-based ways to combat the crisis. RTI experts will be presenting their insights throughout the event, and we look forward to connecting with you to share strategies, opportunities for innovation, and what is working in prevention and treatment.

RTI Sessions

Vision Session: Fusing Opioid Data: Transforming Data into Action to Address the Opioid Crisis
Date/Time: TBD, please check back for updates
Kevin Conway, PhD and Sam Adams will describe the power of data fusion to rapidly accelerate the pace by which opioid data are accessed, integrated, and analyzed to address the opioid crisis. Dr. Conway will describe several applications of data fusion while Adams will demonstrate the application of knowledge graphs to curate and integrate opioid-related data as a means of developing data visualizations.

Useful Indicators of Illicit Opioid Overdose Deaths: Lessons from Ohio 
Date/Time: TBD, please check back for updates
Jon Zibbell, PhD and Arnie Aldridge, PhD will offer a model for employing law enforcement drug exhibits as an early indicator of drug overdose deaths. Trends in fentanyl adulteration of nonopioid drugs (e.g., methamphetamine) will also be explained.

Other RTI Presentations

Beyond Labels: A Toolkit for Professionals to Reduce Stigma Toward Opioid Users
Date/Time: TBD, please check back for updates
RTI's Linda Squires, PhD, will be presenting with the March of Dimes to share their synthesis of research on stigma and effective interventions. They will describe how they applied this research, coupled with findings from user-centered design activities with public health professionals, to create Beyond Labels—an evidence-informed, digital toolkit designed to raise awareness about the impact of health-related stigma, especially for women of child bearing age.

Poster Presentations

Please check back for updates on the format and timing of Poster Presentations.

• "Letting Communities Lead: Providing Evidence-Based Technical Assistance in Response to the Opioid Epidemic" by Holly Hagle, Sara Calvin, Alexander Cowell, and Michael Knabel
• "Implementation of Evidence-Based Practices (EBP) for Opioid Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Nationally: Highlights and Lessons Learned in its effect on addressing the opioid epidemic” by Caroline Gray, Karen Oliver, Aimee Campbell, and Carolina Close
• "Building Cultural Responsive Technical Assistance – Addressing the Opioid Epidemic in non-paid Communities" by Caroline Gray, Holly Echo-Hawk, Aimee Campbell, Brendan Wedehase, and Nic Canning
• "Patterns and trends of polydrug use among opioid users. Results from the National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health and local studies" by Georgiy Bobashev
• "Communities Working to Reduce Barriers to Care for Pregnant and Parenting Women with Opioid Use Disorder: Findings from a National Technical Assistance Project" by Carolina Close
• "Implementing Shared Decision Making training for clinicians prescribing opioids to chronic noncancer pain patients" by Lauren McCormack
• "The Role of Polysubstance Use in Opioid Overdose" by Jennifer Lorvick
• "Introducing ATLAS: a Quality Measurement System for Addiction Treatment" by Shatterproof/Tami Mark
• "Policies and practices that influence telehealth use for substance use disorder treatment" by Saira Haque

Meet Some of Our Opioid Experts

Jon E. Zibbell, PhD conducts behavioral and community-based epidemiological research on risk factors and health outcomes associated with the opioid epidemic and injection drug use. He has conducted rapid ethnographic needs assessments for community-based syringe service and overdose prevention programs and continues to assist states and community organizations to develop evidence-based approaches to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with the opioid epidemic. He will present at the session titled "Useful Indicators of Illicit Opioid Overdose Deaths: Lessons from Ohio."

Kevin Conway, PhD is a Senior Behavioral Health Scientist in our Survey Research Division. He has extensive experience identifying scientific topics in need of strategic development, capitalizing on funding initiatives, and cultivating the careers of future leaders in science and public health. Dr. Conway has authored over 70 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters focusing on the epidemiology of alcohol, tobacco, drug use including opioid use, co-occurring psychiatric disorders, and violence. He will present at the Vision Session titled "Fusing Opioid Data: Transforming Data Into Action to Address the Opioid Crisis."

Sam Adams is an expert in artificial intelligence in our Research Computing Division. He applies AI and knowledge graph techniques to the unique data curation and integration challenges of our data scientists. Holding 29 patents, he played a leading role in a wide range of strategic initiatives including artificial general intelligence, autonomous learning, end-user programming, contextual data fusion, big data and analytics, enterprise-scale data curation, massive multicore programming and high-performance graph database acceleration. He will present at the Vision Session titled "Fusing Opioid Data: Transforming Data Into Action to Address the Opioid Crisis."

Tami Mark, PhD is an internationally known health economist and expert on behavioral health care financing and delivery. She collaborates with Federal and state agencies to improve their behavioral health treatment systems through research, data analytics, technical assistance, and policy development. Dr. Mark has authored more than 100 scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles and numerous government reports on behavioral health financing and delivery. She was a contributing author to the healthcare systems chapter of The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health. She serves on the behavioral health advisory committee of the National Quality Forum and is on the board of Cornerstone Montgomery. She has also served on advisory committees for NIH, SAMHSA and AHRQ.

RTI is uniquely equipped to support the full spectrum of efforts to combat this epidemic—including treatment, prevention, intervention, pain management, and public communication. Our experts are studying prevention and public communication tactics, strategies to reach vulnerable populations and reduce stigma, and innovative treatment options for habitual opioid users as well as those dealing with chronic pain. We believe that ending the opioid epidemic requires data-driven solutions and strong partnerships across industries; we look forward to connecting with you during the conference.

Learn more about what we're doing to help end the opioid epidemic.