Our Approach

CHOSEN will bring together experts in basic and human laboratory research, treatment and intervention development, and implementation scientists from across the University, creating an environment for vibrant exchange of ideas and development of unique collaborations that go beyond what any one of the participating groups could achieve on its own. We will focus on the spectrum from discovery to implementation science that is embedded in the community. Implementation science provides methods of studying the uptake of evidence-based practices into widespread use in the community, theoretical approaches and models of implementation, and community engagement strategies. The expertise of the School of Social Work (CUSSW), the Division on Substance Use Disorders (DSUD), and the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research is unparalleled and complementary, making this approach possible. In addition, we have engaged additional colleagues from the Columbia University Medical Center, the School of Engineering, the Business School, and Data Science Institute bringing their diverse perspectives and skills both in intervention development and implementation. CHOSEN is designed to develop novel multi-level behavioral interventions, pharmacological treatments, and behavioral-pharmacological combinations, and evaluate them in both in laboratories, research clinics, and real world, community-based settings, and improve translation of these evidence-based practices to enhance the health status of the citizens of New York, this country and globally.

CHOSEN research will also advance implementation science to identify effective multi-level approaches that promote adoption and sustainability of existing evidence-based interventions into practice in a range of health care and community-based settings. This approach focuses on building capacity of communities, organizations and on-the-ground personnel. Throughout, CHOSEN research will address the sustainability of a continuum of multi-level and multifaceted interventions to prevent and treat opioid and substance use disorders and reduce drug-related harms in real world clinical and community settings. This continuum will include: (1) implementing data-driven community-level approaches to better identify “hot spots” and “high risk venues” of substance misuse and target community outreach efforts to link and retain people with SUDs to treatment and harm reduction approaches; (2) deploying evidence-based behavioral and pharmacological interventions to prevent and treat SUDs and drug- related harms in a range of clinical and community settings and (3) advancing structural and community-level interventions to reduce stigma, redress racial and gender disparities and widen access to prevention and treatment services.

CHOSEN leadership and faculty represents diverse expertise from over three decades of proficiency in conducting translational work and designing evidence-based interventions and evaluating their use in real-life settings. We will advance theory, practice and study of implementation science with a focus of ensuring the practices will be diffused into diverse communities.