Description of Collaborative Activity: |
The Office of Disease Prevention coordinates the development of the Pathways to Prevention (P2P) program to host workshops that identify research gaps in a selected scientific area, identify methodological and scientific weaknesses in that scientific area, suggest research needs, and move the field forward through an unbiased, evidence-based assessment of a complex public health issue. The Role of Opioids in the Treatment of Chronic Pain was held September 29 – 30, 2014. Chronic pain is a major public health problem, which is estimated to affect more than 100 million people in the United States and about 20 – 30% of the population worldwide. The workshop was designed to clarify: 1) long-term effectiveness of opioids for treating chronic pain, 2) potential risks of opioid treatment in various patient populations, 3) effects of different opioid management strategies on outcomes related to addiction, abuse, misuse, pain, and quality of life, 4)effectiveness of risk mitigation strategies for opioid treatment, and 5) future research needs and priorities to improve the treatment of pain with opioids. The workshop was sponsored by the Office of Disease Prevention, the NIH Pain Consortium, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. A working group made up of content-area experts developed the workshop agenda and the Pacific Northwest Evidence-based Practice Center, through a contract with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, completed a systematic evidence review for the workshop. During the workshop, invited experts discussed the body of evidence and attendees provided comments during open discussion periods. After weighing the all of the evidence, an unbiased, independent, and multidisciplinary panel prepared a report that summarized the workshop and identified future research priorities. An abridged version of the panel’s report was published in Annals of Internal Medicine. |
NIH Participating Institutes/Centers/Office of the Director: |
NIDA, NINDS, OD/DPCPSI/ODP |
