Communities across the United States are reeling from the harmful impacts of opioid use, and, the truth is, we do not yet know how to stem this tide. And even if we discover what works in one locality, we do not know if those lessons will easily transfer to another. This uncertainty is part of the rationale for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Program (COAP), which casts a wide net for solutions among localities and initiatives.
As BetaHub began to work with communities on their opioid problems, we found that many communities have generated promising ideas and developed useful approaches. However, like DOJ, we know that we have much to learn in our efforts to combat opioid misuse and overdose, and progress or setbacks in one locality can inform initiatives in another.
That is why we launched the NYU BetaHub Opioid Collaborative as a community of practice working together against opioid harms. Local leaders will have full control over the initiatives in their own backyards, but we will break down jurisdictional and other barriers to learning from the experiences and expertise of leaders in other areas as well as from the very best research on opioids.
There is likely no single answer to how a community should respond to its opioid problems, but we hope to discover many small answers that add up to big change. As we learn those lessons, we will share them on this website, so we invite you to check back in regularly. We also invite you to join our collaborative as a community partner who is implementing your own initiatives. If you have an idea you want to test, results you’d like to share, or just want to learn more, please contact us through our homepage.