New funding from the Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts (FORE) will support law and policy experts at the Center for Public Health Law Research to create a roadmap for better governance of the opioid crisis.

The project will focus on bolstering the available policy surveillance related to opioid use disorder and opioid overdose deaths on the Center’s Prescription Drug Abuse Policy System and will publish policy briefs and scores and rankings to inform state and federal policymakers and advocates about what new policies are needed and how they can be effectively implemented. It is a collaboration between the Center and Nicolas Terry, LLM, the Hall Render Professor of Law and Executive Director of the William S. and Christine S. Hall Center for Law and Health at Indiana University.

“In the last year, the United States counted the highest number of opioid-related overdose deaths in its history. Evidence-based policy solutions must have a place in our response, and we are grateful to FORE for their support of this essential work,” said CPHLR Director Scott Burris, who is the principal investigator on the project.

FORE is a private 501(c)(3) national grant-making foundation focused on ending the nation’s opioid crisis. The Center is among 11 Innovation Program grantees announced Tuesday, February 1, receiving grants totaling more than $4.8 million.

The Center’s project falls within FORE’s focus on developing new ways of generating sorely needed, real-time and actionable data for all levels of government to appropriately respond to and prevent overdoses, including through integrating new and untapped data sources across different sectors for a more in-depth understanding of the crisis.