Administrative Core

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ABSTRACT The opioid crisis is a complex and dynamic problem, affecting a significant number of people and communities and generating tremendous public health and social costs. The situation today arose out of decades of unattended issues that each contributed to the problem, and the continued rapid evolution of the crisis necessitates collaborative efforts that draw from diverse disciplines and perspectives in order to disentangle the wide range of activities, responsibilities, and challenges facing our public health, health care, public safety, law enforcement and criminal justice systems these complexities. The RAND Center for Opioid Policy Research (COPR) aims to bring together an extraordinary group of multi-disciplinary scholars to develop the necessary reliable and relevant data, rigorous methods, and policy tools that can push the science forward quickly in the identification of effective strategies that can inform evidence-based opioid policy. The purpose of the Administrative Core (AC) is to provide that leadership and support and facilitate the investigative teams in the execution of the Center’s objectives. The AC will provide overall scientific oversight and manage quality control throughout COPR by developing a set of Center-wide and Project- and DMC-specific Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that will formalize review and oversight for all aspects of the COPR. The development of these SOPs, in combination with the establishment of the Center’s External Advisory Board, will ensure that Center activities are conducted efficiently and are focusing on the most pressing and relevant opioid policy issues to address the most salient methodological challenges faced by the field. By overseeing COPR administrative support and communication, leveraging the rich collaboration and communication tools within our research environment, the AC will promote internal communication and collaboration, encourage synergy, and facilitate team science across COPR. Given the highly dynamic nature of the opioid crisis and opioid policy environment, the AC will serve as the Center’s overarching resource for staying abreast of new policy areas, dimensions, outcomes, and issues that arise as opioid markets and the problems associated with them shift. The AC will thus take responsibility for the selection of Pilot Projects addressing emerging opioid issues and will also provide content-area guidance to support these studies. Finally, the AC will establish a dedicated Communications and Dissemination Arm (CDA) to maximize research dissemination and policy impact. By housing this centralized communication infrastructure in the AC, we ensure that COPR research tools, data, and findings are most effectively communicated and disseminated both within the internal Center team and affiliated institutions, as well as to a broader audience, including researchers, policymakers, and the general public. Combined, the AC’s activities will enhance our ability to ensure scientific rigor, promote multi- disciplinary collaboration, and will synthesize and broadly disseminate the rich information coming out of COPR in order to advance our understanding of the crisis and generate meaningful policy impact.