Innovation Rooted in Equity

In February 2025, SIG and Columbia hosted Groundbreaking Research in Addiction and Community Engagement: The Power of Team Science in the HEALing Communities Study, a one-day even at the Columbia University Forum highlighting the diverse, wide-reaching findings of the HEALing Communities Study. With presentations covering the main focus of the study, the development and maintenance of powerful community coalitions, how HCS teams used systems dynamics modeling to support those community coalitions, and how to build on the years of work already done, the event provided an opportunity for researchers to connect with each other and deepen their understanding of the many facets of the HEALing Communities Study.

Researchers from Columbia and other universities, National Institutes of Health staff, key members of community coalitions and partner organizations, and subject matter experts spoke about the wide range of topics. They emphasized the importance of working directly with communities, making data widely available to those communities, combatting stigma around opioid use, creating multiple pathways to engage people in supportive services, and using best practices to achieve desired outcomes.

Disseminating Key Findings

Throughout 2025, the HCS team continued to release papers about secondary findings from the study, including the reduction of non-fatal opioid overdoses, the role of stigma in community coalition discussions, overdose education and naloxone distribution, and more.

Selected 2025 HEALing Communities Study publications:

• Artificial Intelligence and Stigma in Addiction Research: Insights From the HEALing Communities Study Coalition Meetings (Journal of Addiction Medicine)
• The effectiveness of the communities that HEAL intervention on reducing non-fatal opioid overdoses: A prespecified secondary analysis of a waitlist cluster control randomized controlled trial (International Journal of Drug Policy)
• Overdose education and naloxone distribution in jails: Examining the impact of the Communities That HEAL intervention in 4 states (Health & Justice)
• Effects of the Communities That HEAL intervention on initiation, retention, and linkage to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD): A cluster randomized wait-list controlled trial (Drug and Alcohol Dependence)
• The impact of the communities that HEAL intervention on the provision of jail-based medication for opioid use disorder & linkage programs at release: Results from a randomized, wait-list controlled trial (Journal of Substance Use and Addiction Treatment)

Building Social Service Workforce Competencies in Europe and Central Asia

Building Social Service Workforce Competencies in Europe and Central Asia, a collaboration between UNICEF and Columbia School of Social Work led by Timothy Hunt, works to strengthen interpersonal communication and community engagement to influence and support individual and social change in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and improve the behavioral and social outcomes of vulnerable individuals, children, families, groups, and communities in ECA, including initially Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Albania. The project has now expanded to nine countries. This is accomplished by expanding the capacity of the social service workforce and competencies utilized in the social services field.

In February, Building Competencies in Interpersonal Communication and Community Engagement for the Social Service Workforce held a global launch event through UNICEF.

WINGS

WINGS is an evidence-based screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment service tool, designed to identify intimate partner and gender-based violence among women who use drugs. It was developed by Dr. Louisa Gilbert and her team at SIG in 2008, and has been adapted and implemented around the world, including in New York City, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, India, and Ukraine.

TechMPower

TechMPower, led by Victoria Frye, Timothy Hunt, and Nabila El-Bassel, is a groundbreaking study that aims to prevent and treat HIV and overdose in criminal justice settings through the implementation of a comprehensive bundle of evidence-based strategies that will enhance the effective delivery of interventions for both HIV and substance use disorder.

In 2025, TechMPower began expanding from its pilot site in New York State to six carceral facilities across New York and New Jersey.

P3: Sex-Positive Pleasure Practices

Led by Dr. Victoria Frye, Professor of Social Work and Co-Director of the Social Intervention Group, P3 is an NIH-funded study centered on increasing HIV testing and PrEP uptake among Black, African-American, and/or Afro-Latino men who have sex with men by focusing on sex positivity and sexual pleasure. While addressing stigma- and discrimination-related barriers to accessing preventive care, the P3 team is building an intervention that can be integrated into community-based care.

In the summer of 2025, the P3 team attended Pride events around the New York area in collaboration with the Columbia Research Unit and New York Blood Center's Project Achieve. They used these events to distribute sexual health products, connect with the queer community, and build relationships with community-based organizations and other researchers also in attendance.

Western New York Rural Alliance: Communities That HEAL

The goal of the Western NY Rural Alliance: Communities That HEAL RCORP Impact Initiative, led by Dr. Timothy Hunt and Dr. Dawn Goddard-Eckrich, is to evaluate the adoption, cost and, acceptability of the Communities That HEAL intervention in six western New York counties where opioid related overdose deaths are high and resources are stretched. Working with a network of coalitions in Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Livingston, Steuben, and Wyoming, researchers will work to improve access to integrated, coordinated treatment and recovery services for substance use disorder (SUD), including opioid use disorder (OUD), and promote long-term, sustained recovery for over 4,500 people over a four-year period.

E-WORTH

E-WORTH, a multimedia HIV/STI intervention for Black drug-involved women on probation in New York City, used a randomized clinical trial to test the efficacy of a multimedia intervention and streamlined HIV testing to prevent HIV and other STIs. E-WORTH found that using culturally tailored interventions leads to higher levels of PrEP awareness and adherence.

In We Must Build HIV Prevention Interventions that Reach Black Women, Dr. Dawn Goddard-Eckrich shares findings from E-WORTH study, emphasizing the importance of ensuring that PrEP and other HIV prevention messaging reaches Black women, who have disproportionately high HIV rates, especially among those who use drugs and are involved with the criminal justice system.

AEGIDA

Under the guidance of Dr. Nabila El-Bassel and Dr. Victoria Frye, AEGIDA researchers assessed the acceptability, feasibility, preliminary efficacy and cost of a peer-based HIV self-testing intervention to increase consistent HIV testing among women who exchange sex and inject drugs in Kazakhstan. Because of the centrality of injection drug use to the HIV epidemic in Central Asia and the relatively recent implementation of PrEP in the region, connecting women to PrEP and other risk-mitigation approaches under their own control represents an important area for addressing the epidemic and increasing the safety of women who exchange sex and use drugs.

In AEGIDA: Results of a Pilot Randomized Trial of an HIV Self-Testing Intervention for Women Who Exchange Sex and Use Substances in Kazakhstan, Dr. Brooke West and coauthors share the key findings from AEGIDA, including that women who were enrolled in the intervention were more than 4 times more likely to have recently completed an HIV test at the follow-up.

ORLEU: Reducing Intersectional and HIV Stigma among High Risk Women who use Drugs in Kazakhstan

ORLEU, a study about the design and assessment of a three component, multi-level participatory intervention to promote stigma resistance and reduce anticipated and internalized stigma among women who exchange sex and use substances, completed data collection in Kazakhstan. The findings from that data will generate information about multilevel anti-stigma approaches for both women vulnerable to HIV and healthcare providers, which will have important implications for advancing HIV prevention and care engagement among highly stigmatized populations in diverse settings.

Center for Justice

Women Transcending, by and for formerly incarcerated and directly-impacted women, aims to highlight unique factors that bring women into the criminal justice system and raise awareness of how the impact of the punishment paradigm on formerly incarcerated women and their communities. Through the Women Transcending Collective Leadership Institute, the Oral History Research Program, The Right/Write to Heal Initiative, and comprehensive public programming, they are working to re-shape the current narrative by empowering women to become leaders and agents of change in their own communities.

Beyond the Bars, a student-driven interdisciplinary conference on mass incarceration, is held annually. In 2025, the theme was Sankofa: Looking Back to Move Forward. Celebrating the 15th iteration of Beyond the Bars, Sankofa featured topics discussed at Beyond the Bars over the past 15 years and envisioned the future of the movement. Plenaries addressed learning from the past, women leaders addressing oppression around the world, healing and community care in the movement, the visions of young people for the future, and more.

The Center for Advancing Community Strengths and Social Wellbeing

New research from SIG was highlighted by Addiction Policy Forum in New Study Utilizing AI Highlights Stigma Around Medications for Opioid Use Disorder and Study Shows Community Coalition-Prioritized Strategies Increased Naloxone Education and Distribution in Jails.

Events