Determining the Optimal Duration of Buprenorphine Treatment to Reduce the Risk of Relapse, Overdose, and Mortality (NIH HEAL Initiative)

Funded by the NIH HEAL Initiative^®

This study seeks to address the priority of the optimal duration of buprenorphine treatment to reduce the risk of relapse, overdose, and mortality outcomes using observational data. Answering this question with a randomized trial raises ethical concerns, observational studies with large datasets can address these important questions relatively quickly. At the same time, observational studies pose their own methodologic challenges related to confounding, misclassification of exposure and outcome, and informative loss-to-follow-up. This study will identify and quantify the potential for these sources of bias and then conduct analyses to address the questions of interest (risk of relapse, overdose and mortality).