$1M Grant Going Towards Research To Fight Opioid Crisis
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A Springfield researcher is looking into ways to fight the opioid crisis with help from a $1 million federal grant.
It's not just a powerful addition, it can also lead to HIV because some opioid addicts use dirty needles.
"To really overcome this as a country, and even in communities, will take much more than just providing clean syringes and referrals to treatment," said the lead researcher Wiley Jenkins, who's from Southern Illinois University's school of medicine, is the lead researcher.
"We're really talking about communities -- especially in rural areas -- understanding the nature of their problem and providing and environment where people feel that they can be accepted for their addiction."
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Jenkins says the research could make a difference, although it will take longer to beat back the addiction culture.
"Investigating how people who inject drugs operate -- they're culture, how they assess care. We know a lot of these things -- we know how they work and there's a base of evidence to show that they do work."
Therefore, Jenkins says, they seek to take a lot of these evidence-based practices and apply them into very specific areas.
Research will be a multi-year project from the state's 16 southern-most counties, with help from the University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago and the State Department of Public Health.