Overview

The Helping to End Addiction Long-term® Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative®, supports a wide range of programs to develop new or improved prevention and treatment strategies for opioid addiction and co-occurring conditions such as mental illness and polysubstance use. Programs are developing and implementing prevention and treatment strategies for a range of at-risk populations and in various settings. This research is also developing strategies to understand and monitor biological and social factors that drive disease progression, as well as defining approaches to improve treatment retention.

Open Funding Opportunities

2023
HEAL Initiative: Research to Increase Implementation of Substance Use Preventive Services (R61/R33 Clinical Trial Optional)
Sep 22, 2023
2023
HEAL Initiative: Research to Increase Implementation of Substance Use Preventive Services (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)
Sep 22, 2023

Research Programs

This program will design and test a primary care setting-based, multidisciplinary treatment model to serve patients with unhealthy use of opioids and alcohol, stimulants, and/or sedatives. Researchers will first plan, develop, and define a treatment model and pilot test its feasibility and acceptability.

The Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial of Monthly Injectable Buprenorphine for Methamphetamine Use Disorder (MURB) will help researchers determine whether monthly injections of buprenorphine are safe and effective in people with methamphetamine use disorder who also misuse opioids at levels that do not warrant medication-based treatment.

Research shows that collaborative care is effective for treating mood and anxiety disorders, but more research is needed to demonstrate its usefulness for treating opioid use disorder. The Optimizing Care for People with Opioid Use Disorder and Mental Health Conditions program tests the adaptation, effectiveness, adoption, scalability, and sustainability of collaborative care for individuals with opioid use disorder and co-occurring mental health conditions using integrated treatment models in primary care settings.

The Optimizing the Duration, Retention, and Discontinuation of Medication Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder program supports research to define the optimal length of medication treatments approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for opioid use disorder (methadone and buprenorphine), taking into account various patient populations and treatment settings.

The Preventing Opioid Use Disorder program supports prevention research focused on underserved populations that experience health disparities and centered around four strategic areas: identifying risk, studying the role of social determinants and policy, developing effective interventions, and disseminating and implementing sustainable, scalable prevention services for populations with risk for opioid misuse.

The Subthreshold Opioid Use Disorder Prevention (STOP) Study aims to help researchers better understand how to define, identify, and intervene in the management of opioid misuse in primary care settings among individuals with low-severity opioid use disorder.

The Sleep Dysfunction as a Core Feature of Opioid Use Disorder and Recovery program supports research using genomic, molecular, pharmacological, and clinical approaches to better understand sleep and circadian factors relevant to addiction and how these factors influence one another. This research could open new avenues for prevention and treatment of opioid use disorder.

Funded Projects

2023
Investigating Mechanisms Underpinning Outcomes in People on Opioid Agonist Treatment for OUD: Disentangling Sleep and Circadian Rhythm Influences on Craving and Emotion Regulation
Nov 28, 2023
2023
Sleep and Circadian Rhythm Phenotypes and Mechanisms Associated With Opioid Use Disorder Treatment Outcomes
Nov 28, 2023
2023
Preventing School Exclusion and Opioid Misuse: Effectiveness of the Inclusive Skill-Building Learning Approach (ISLA)
Nov 28, 2023
2023
Improving Buprenorphine Retention with Transcutaneous Auricular Neurostimulation for Patients with Co-occurring Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Opioid Use Disorder
Nov 28, 2023
2023
Medications for Opioid Use Disorder Differentially Modulate Intrinsically Photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cell Function, Sleep, and Circadian Rhythms: Implications for Treatment
Nov 28, 2023

Closed Funding Opportunities

2021
HEAL Initiative: Exploratory Data and Methods to Address Urgent Needs to Stem the Opioid Epidemic (R21- Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
Dec 20, 2021
2021
HEAL Initiative: Data and Methods to Address Urgent Needs to Stem the Opioid Epidemic (R01- Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
Dec 20, 2021
2020
Notice of Special Interest(NOSI): HEAL Initiative: Social Network Analyses to Reduce American Indian and Alaska Native Opioid Use Disorder and Related Risks for Suicide and Mental Health Disorders
Feb 06, 2020
2020
Notice of Special Interest: HEAL Supplements to Improve the Treatment and Management of Common Co-occurring Conditions and Suicide Risk in People Affected by the Opioid Crisis
Feb 05, 2020
2019
Behavioral Interventions for Prevention of Opioid Use Disorder or Adjunct to Medication Assisted Treatment-SAMHSA Opioid STR Grants (R21/R33)
Sep 25, 2019