Dr. Lauren Whiteside Receives NIH-funded R01 Grant for Project on Opioid Use Disorder

Dr. Lauren Whiteside, Assistant Professor and member of our Section of Population Health, has been awarded an R01 Grant from the NIH for her project titled “The Emergency Department Longitudinal Integrated Care (ED-LINC) Effectiveness Randomized Trial Targeting Opioid Use and Related Comorbidity from the ED.”

The project, scheduled to run through mid-2026, will focus on the emergence of Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) as a major US public health crisis, with over 2 million adults afflicted. The ED is a healthcare location where patients with OUD can be identified, evidence-based care initiated and treatment linkages proactively solidified. The systematic testing of the ED-LINC intervention, supported by the EDIE health information exchange platform, can begin to provide a critical evidence base that will enable emergency departments to better address the opioid epidemic.

The overarching goal of this study is to test the effectiveness of the ED-LINC intervention when compared with usual care. The study incorporates pragmatic trial design features combined with an implementation process assessment that aims to catalyze the scaling up of the ED-LINC intervention, should the trial demonstrate effectiveness for key outcomes.