Community Network-Driven COVID-19 Testing in Vulnerable Populations (044)

The University of Chicago received a supplement from NIH Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) program to support the Community Network-Driven COVID-19 Testing of Vulnerable Populations in the Central US (C3) project to evaluate a COVID-19 testing approach that combines Social Network Testing Strategy (SNS) with community-developed public health messages. This study will focus on addressing misinformation, stigma, and distrust about COVID-19 testing and prevention among two populations that have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic: individuals involved in the criminal justice system that are not currently incarcerated and low-income Latinx individuals. The study will be conducted in rural and urban sites across Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Indiana, and Illinois. The goal of this study is to address challenges of current COVID-19 testing strategies which are limited by misinformation, stigma, distrust, and limited affirmation of ability to prevent COVID-19.

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Supportive Social Networks and Outcomes (024)

Social support networks have been an invaluable tool to combat addiction and other health interventions. The concept of social support networks as a powerful force in the health of substance users is well documented. Effective substance use disorder (SUD) and opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment approaches have been effectively combined with the inclusion of naturally-occurring support persons. The concept of organic social support has been under-utilized for retaining community members in SUD treatment programs.

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Re-Entry: Social Networks and Opioid Use (023)

Diverse communities enter the justice system, exit and re-enter to create a complex circulation driven by a number of social and structural factors. Often ignored are important social interactions that drive opioid use disorder (OUD) or methamphetamine use. Social learning and differential association theories hold that risky behaviors, including rationalizations for them, diffuse through social networks of close ties. Furthermore, network members influence behavior by virtue of the behavioral example they provide, the normative pressures they exert, and perceptions of these influences. If we understand how OUD/meth or recovery/renewed use moves through networks and their local geographic contexts, we will be able to develop new interventions, and determine previously unobserved mechanisms as to why interventions may fail or have success.

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MOUD Access and Place-Based Policies (021)

Across the country, various public health interventions, opioid use policies, and criminal justice policies have emerged in response to the opioid epidemic in recent years. Many of the policies help improve access to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) and related services. However, the impact of improving access to these resources on health outcomes can vary substantially in different local contexts under various policies.

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Predicting the Next Overdose (022)

The University of Chicago is developing open-source software that can be used by researchers and practitioners to predict overdose and re-offending risk of their population. This project will use large administrative datasets and machine-learning technology to develop a framework for transparent predictive models and simulations to help identify people at highest risk and how populations will benefit from interventions, and explore the likely policy impact of observed relationships among emerging trends to improve outcomes.

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In Silico JCOIN Trial Models (018)

Computational analogues of the JCOIN clinical research centers, so called in silico clinical trials, in the form of data-driven, agent-based network models (ABNMs), can provide a variety of simulation-based analyses to investigate longer-term health outcomes beyond the clinical trial timelines. Building on the Justice-Community Circulation Model (JCCM), the University of Chicago will apply the JCCM framework to develop in silico versions of JCOIN’s clinical research trials to run computational trials such as optimizing cross-study combinations of interventions or tracking additional and emerging outcome.

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Social/Spatial Inequities and OUD/HCV Outcomes (019)

Access to treatment and medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) is essential for reducing HIV and HCV transmissions. However, the spatial distribution of the resources for treatment and medication is a result of various social factors, which can include potential inequities.

To demonstrate the utility of a spatial perspective in evaluating access to MOUD resources, the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory will use a simulation approach to evaluate how treatment and intervention locations affect HIV and HCV transmissions.

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Optimal Distance to Treatment Services (020)

The University of Chicago is developing an agent-based network model (ABNM) framework to study location-specific evolution and dynamics of opioid use disorder (OUD) in justice settings. The Justice Community Circulation Model framework is designed to help researchers and practitioners explore underlying mechanisms, epidemiological processes and interactions, such as the health and mortality pathways of individuals who experience non-fatal overdose or who initiate treatment, among justice-involved individuals with OUD.

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Justice-Community Circulation Model (017)

The University of Chicago is developing an agent-based network model (ABNM) framework to study location-specific evolution and dynamics of opioid use disorder (OUD) in justice settings. The Justice Community Circulation Model framework is designed to help researchers and practitioners explore underlying mechanisms, epidemiological processes and interactions, such as the health and mortality pathways of individuals who experience non-fatal overdose or who initiate treatment, among justice-involved individuals with OUD.

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National Longitudinal Jail/Prison Survey (028)

Despite the effectiveness of medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), there is a lack of information about what is currently available, accessible, and used throughout the jail and prison systems of the US. To better address this gap, the NORC at the University of Chicago will study how prisons and jails across 24 justictions are addressing opioid use disorder.

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