The Opioid Center of Support, a non-profit 501c3 organization dedicated to fighting the opioid crisis, today launched a free online resource to help the 14.2 million people in the U.S. coping with opioid misuse. Developed with leading medical experts on substance misuse and addiction, the Opioid Center of Support’s platform organizes the most trusted resources on opioid misuse in one place online, for the first time.
The Opioid Center of Support was founded by Vera Bullock and Curtis Hougland and is governed by a medical advisory board including leading addiction experts Dr. Mark Gold, Chairman of Rivermend Health’s Scientific Advisory Boards; Dr. Andrew Kolodny, faculty member at Brandeis University; and former Chief Medical Officer for Phoenix House; and Dr. Michael Lesser, executive director of RANE and the former Medical Director for NY City, among others listed here.
“As a mother who lost her son to an opioid overdose, I understand how difficult it is to get credible information on opioids,” said the Opioid Center of Support founder Vera Bullock. “The Opioid Center of Support is our humble attempt to honor my son, and help all of the families and friends across the country devastated by this epidemic. By organizing trusted resources in one place for the first time, we hope to create a more trustworthy online experience for navigating opioid addiction.”
Built in partnership with The Social Good, a technology company that uses machine learning, data science and digital content to create positive social impact, the platform identifies and scores the most actionable evidence-based resources across the Internet through computer algorithms. In building the platform, the team identified, scored, and categorized more than 3,000 existing resources on opioid use as well as more than 850,000,000 expressions in social media. Currently, the online resource features 154 resources including web pages, medical journals, podcasts, mobile applications, videos, and blogs. Sources include 36 percent government (50), 24 percent non-profit (34), 15 percent academic (21), 14 percent commercial (20), and 11 percent news (16), among others. Some lived-experience materials are included as well.
