UMass Medical to partner with prisons; fight opioid addiction

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By Sam Bonacci

UMass Medical School will take the fight against the ongoing opioid crisis within prison walls through a new health collaborative with a focus on bringing evidence-based treatment for substance abuse and Hepatitis C to prisons and jails, the school announced Wednesday.

The correctional health collaborative will involve treatment teams at four yet-to-be-confirmed prison and jail systems from the United States. They will be guided by implementation science experts as they work to apply evidence-based care for substance use disorders, with emphasis on opioids, as well as screening and treatment for Hepatitis C, according to the school.

About 80 percent of the prison population has a substance use disorder and more than 17 percent are infected with Hepatitis C, according to recent research. Despite that, most prisons and jails have not adopted effective treatments and best practices, the school said in a release.

Substance use disorder will be the first focus area, with teams from the healthcare systems identifying a single site to test implementation of evidence-based practices. Teams will conduct an inventory of current screening and treatment practices for opioid addiction and make recommendations for improvements based on proven methods.

Improvements in the areas of Hepatitis C screening and treatment will be the second project, expected to begin in in 2017.

The initiative is supported through two grants, one for four years from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and one for three years from the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality. The funding will be used, in part, to develop an Implementation Science Track at the Academic and Health Policy Conference on Correctional Health, hosted by ACCJH and supported by UMass Medical School.