Prime Institution: Yale University
While the deployment of first responders in the field for overdose provides life-saving resuscitation and naloxone, data are lacking to understand when treatment referrals are offered and the time between overdose to treatment engagement. In this project, investigators will use a system dynamics model to assess the impact of Good Samaritan laws and naloxone distribution on overdose mortality. The investigators will also implement and evaluate a novel, scalable telehealth platform at the time of an opioid overdose that links people who have overdosed with access to medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), harm reduction services, and recovery supports. Evaluation data will be integrated with the system dynamics model to inform if, where, when, and what interventions should be implemented in the future. The long-term goal is to disseminate these novel systems dynamics modeling and telehealth strategies nationally, improving access to MOUD and reducing overdose morbidity and mortality.
Robert Heimer, PhD
Dr. Heimer's major research efforts include scientific investigation of the mortality and morbidity associated with injection drug use. Areas of investigation include syringe exchange programs, virus survival in syringes, hepatitis B vaccination, hepatitis C transmission risks, overdose prevention and resuscitation, and pharmacological treatment of opiate addiction. His research combines laboratory, operational, behavioral, and structural analyses to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention programs in preventing the negative medical consequences of injection drug use. Dr. Heimer is a member of Yale’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA) and former Director of its Interdisciplinary Research Methods Core. His current work focuses on the contexts and consequences of the opioid crisis in CT and the systemic of HIV, viral hepatitis, and injection drug use nationally and globally. Dr. Heimer previously served as Principal Investigator of the Yale office of the Connecticut Emerging Infections Program. This Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded program is one of ten programs nationwide that seek to assess, through population-based surveillance, the public health impact of emerging infectious diseases and to evaluate methods for their prevention and control in the community. The Yale program currently focuses on foodborne illnesses, and respiratory illnesses (especially influenza), Lyme and other tickborne diseases, Clostridium difficile, and the prevention of human papillomavirus infections. Dr. Heimer received his training in molecular biology and pharmacology at Columbia College (BA) and Yale University (MA, PhD). He began his work on the prevention of HIV among injection drug users in 1990 with an evaluation of the city-run New Haven needle exchange program and his work on emerging infections in 1995 with studies of the tick-borne agent of human ehrlichiosis.
Nasim Sabounchi, MS, PhD, Yale University, MPI
Dr. Nasim Sabounchi is an Associate Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, where she is also affiliated with the Center for Systems and Community Design (CSCD). She is an industrial and systems engineer, and a systems scientist in the field of public health and health care and recipient of the Systems Science Scholarship, Academy of Health—Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She bridges her engineering knowledge with behavioral and social sciences research with the goal of expanding the tools for modeling problems within health and social systems. Dr. Sabounchi contributes to the advancement of system dynamics modeling and computer simulation for studying complex health and social systems and leads various projects in the domain of public health and health policy analysis, including enhancing access to care for socioeconomically disadvantaged populations and Medicaid recipients, prevention of prescription misuse, antibiotic resistance, Lyme disease, HPV, and epidemics. Furthermore, she has extensive experience in developing system dynamics simulation models through group model building with various stakeholders, including residents in low-income communities, policymakers, physicians, and basic scientists.
Rebekah Heckmann, MD, MPH, MPA, Yale University, MPI
Dr. Rebekah Heckmann is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine. She is also a Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, the Director of Resident Research for the Department of Emergency Medicine, the Associate Medical Director of the Project ASSERT Program, and Core Faculty for the Yale Program in Addiction Medicine. She completed her residency in emergency medicine and served as chief resident at the University of Washington before pursuing a health policy research and translation fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. While working as an attending physician at Brigham and Women’s, she earned a Master in Public Administration degree from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Heckmann has extensive experience performing health policy analysis and working within public health and global health systems. She focuses her research activities on using quantitative social science methods, including system dynamics modeling, to design and advocate for evidence-based health policy. She is board certified in emergency medicine and addiction medicine.