Misuse and Abuse of DEA Schedule II-V Opioid Analgesic Drugs: Researching Strategies to Ensure Safe Use and Reduce Preventable Harm (U01)

As part of the FDA's Safe Use Initiative's mission to seek solutions to reduce preventable harm from suboptimal use (e.g., misuse and abuse) of medications, CDER is seeking to support a limited number of research projects aimed at examining interventions and strategies that can be used by prescribers to increase the safe use and reduce misuse and abuse of opioid analgesic drugs. This funding opportunity announcement (FOA), issued by the FDA, will provide resources for research to further define the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors that lead to inappropriate use and abuse of opioid analgesics; to research and implement strategies impacting inappropriate use and abuse of these drugs; and subsequently reduce the preventable harm, morbidity and mortality caused by Schedule II-V prescription opioid analgesic drugs. Inappropriate use and abuse can include but is not limited to prescriber misprescribing or over-prescribing and patient or citizen use of a drug in a manner that is not its intended use (e.g., non-medical use), dose or schedule, or inappropriate or inadvertent mixing of multiple drugs that interact. The goal of this FOA is to increase the body of knowledge around effective strategies that can reduce misuse and abuse of prescription opioid analgesic drugs, and are applicable in a variety of settings and can be easily sustained by the people who will implement and use the strategies.