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Friday, March 29, 2024
NEWS  |  CAMPUS

$600,000 grant to allow UF researchers to tackle prescription drug abuse

UF Health researchers are using a three-year grant to help medical and law enforcement officials recognize prescription drug abuse patterns.

The $600,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance will enhance the Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs, or PDMPs, a state-run electronic database used to track prescription drugs given to patients.

Chris Delcher, who is leading the project funded by the grant, said the goal is to make access to the databases easier for physicians, pharmacists and medical examiners, while also helping law enforcement officers recognize suspicious patterns in the databases.

The database will allow officials to distinguish between someone who is visiting multiple doctors with a serious illness or visiting multiple doctors to get medication to sell, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Outcomes and Policy in the UF College of Medicine said.

“One thing that’s starting to become clear is that it’s not just a public health problem, it’s not just a law enforcement problem, it’s not just an addiction problem,” he said. “It’s all of those things together.”

Delcher said any prescription drug the federal government views as having high abuse potential is included in the database.

Delcher, who has been working in the field of prescription drug abuse and monitoring programs for about five years, said he’s grateful to have a team to continue studying the issue.

Bruce Goldberger, a professor and the director of UF Health Forensic Medicine, evaluates who has access to the program. He hopes to give medical examiners the ability to see prescription drug usage to monitor drug abuse more closely to help determine the cause of death of individuals.

Goldberger said he and other researchers are using different ways to gain support for better access to the database, including conducting an assessment at UF on how to increase this access.

“We were thrilled that we were funded when we received this grant,” he said, adding that a previous grant had run out. “This one provides continuity for all the work we’ve been doing.”

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