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Emerging Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and produce early results that are consistent with the objectives of the activities and thus indicate effectiveness.
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White Paper/Brief
This article discusses the Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts (FORE) distribution of $1.3 million in grants to organizations studying the potential permanent adoption of COVID-19 care access measures to promote health equity in opioid use disorder treatment. The grants aim to investigate the impact of temporary policies, such as virtual care, on access to care and patient outcomes. The studies will explore how relaxed prescribing policies for buprenorphine, telehealth strategies, and other COVID-19 measures have affected patient access and outcomes, particularly among underserved populations. The research will inform evidence-based policies to sustain access to better care beyond the pandemic and address the ongoing opioid crisis.
Emerging Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and produce early results that are consistent with the objectives of the activities and thus indicate effectiveness.
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Peer Review Study
This study describes harm reduction and health services provided by the U.S. syringe services programs (SSPs) in 2019 and changes in provision of those services in 2020. Many SSPs that offered health services in 2019 and remained operational in 2020 increased telehealth provision of mental health and primary care services, increased MOUD provision, and expanded harm reduction services, but most SSPs reduced or stopped on-site HIV and HCV testing. With the record high opioid overdose fatality rates in 2020, sustaining the trajectory of SSP growth and innovation leading up to and through 2020 requires ensuring adequate and flexible funding to support the life-saving work of SSPs in preventing future overdose deaths and outbreaks of HIV and HCV.
Novel Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and are in the process of generating evidence of effectiveness or may not yet be tested.
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White Paper/Brief
An early report issued by the CDC identified staff members working in multiple nursing homes as a likely source of spread of COVID-19. The authors performed the first large-scale analysis of nursing home connections via shared staff and contractors. Using a large-scale analysis of smartphone location data, they found that 49 percent of COVID-19 cases among nursing home residents was attributable to staff movement between facilities. Traditional federal regulatory metrics of nursing home quality were unimportant in predicting outbreaks. The results provide evidence for a policy recommendation of compensating nursing home workers to work at only one home and limit cross-traffic across homes.
Emerging Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and produce early results that are consistent with the objectives of the activities and thus indicate effectiveness.
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Peer Review Study
This case study is on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccine distribution via mobile vans to residents/staff of 47,907 long-term care facilities (LTCFs) across the United States that relied on algorithms to optimize vaccine distribution. The authors developed a modeling framework for vaccine distribution to high-risk populations in a supply-constrained environment. The framework decomposed this challenge as two separate problems: an assignment problem, where they optimally mapped each LTCF to select CVS stores responsible for vaccines; and a scheduling problem, where they developed an algorithm to assign available resources efficiently. The learning and this framework may be of use to other organizations, including communities where mobile clinics can be established to efficiently distribute vaccines and other healthcare resources in a variety of scenarios.
Promising Practices that show evidence of effectiveness in improving public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting, as indicated by achievement of aims consistent with the objectives of the activities, and are suitable for adaptation by other communities.
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Summary Report/Recommendations
This article discusses the preliminary data regarding Syringe Services Program (SSP) operational and service delivery changes during the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and provides key policy and service provision implications for SSPs. There is an emphasis on the distribution of services provided at SSPs and highlights the need for SSP support in providing education, prevention, and strategies to avoid emerging infectious disease outbreaks.