As communities across Alabama and the nation continue to grapple with the deadly impact of fentanyl, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are leading a new effort aimed at preventing overdoses before they happen.
UAB announced that Emma Kay, Ph.D., an associate professor in the School of Nursing, and Karen Cropsey, Psy.D., a professor of psychiatry in the Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine, have received a six-year, $5.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse to study whether fentanyl test strips can help prevent overdose deaths.
The project will be the first national study conducted entirely remotely to determine whether fentanyl test strips can help people identify the dangerous drug before use. The researchers hope the study will demonstrate an effective and affordable way to identify fentanyl contamination before it leads to a deadly overdose.
While the study will involve participants nationwide, the effort is being led by Alabama-based researchers whose findings could help shape future overdose prevention strategies across the country.
The study comes as fentanyl and other synthetic opioids remain responsible for most overdose deaths in the United States. According to UAB, fentanyl is nearly 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, with a potentially lethal dose as small as 2 milligrams.
Researchers say many people who use opioids or stimulants do not intentionally seek out fentanyl but instead unknowingly purchase drugs that have been contaminated with the powerful synthetic opioid.
Fentanyl test strips are designed to detect whether a substance contains fentanyl before it is consumed. Researchers say making the strips more widely available could provide another tool to help prevent overdose deaths.
The project builds on Cropsey’s previous work involving the remote distribution of naloxone, a medication used to reverse opioid overdoses. Researchers say those efforts demonstrated that overdose prevention tools can be distributed and used successfully outside traditional healthcare settings. The team now hopes to determine whether fentanyl test strips can follow a similar path by reaching people before an overdose occurs.
Researchers will evaluate a fentanyl test strip education and distribution program among individuals considered at risk for overdose. They hope the study will show the approach can work on a large scale and help reduce overdose deaths across the country.
The remote design of the project is also intended to reach people who are not engaged in substance use treatment programs, including individuals living in rural communities where prevention resources may be limited.
If successful, researchers say the study could provide a low-barrier, sustainable approach to overdose prevention while helping reduce the human and economic costs associated with opioid-related deaths.
The team also hopes the findings will support future efforts to make fentanyl test strips more widely accessible, potentially providing communities across Alabama and the nation with another tool to combat the ongoing overdose crisis.
Sherri Blevins is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You may contact her at [email protected].
