24 Hours to Change the Future of Opioid Addiction
Guest post from: University of California Institute for Prediction Technology
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Claire Houlihan
Direct: 949-616-2140
Email: [email protected]
The University of California Institute for Prediction Technology (UCIPT) is hosting the Opioid West Hack-A-Thon+ 2018, featuring the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This event will bring event participants to the forefront of the tools and strategies being developed to help solve the opioid crisis, one of the leading public health crises in the US today.
This 24-hour hackathon will be building on insights from the previous US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Code-A-Thon in December of 2017.
The event will bring together teams from data science/visualization, patients/families, public health/policy, and law enforcement/justice system to create new approaches to solving the opioid crisis. There are tracks in data sharing ethics and behavior change-related software development, as well as data science/visualization solution tracks designed for public health and integrative health.
25 teams will compete, and winning teams from each track will receive $1000s in prize money, mentorship to further develop their technologies, and travel support to present their work at an academic conference as well as to meet with key collaborators to help teams implement their solutions.
“Every day, approximately 115 people die of an opioid overdose. To solve the crisis, we need new technological solutions, created in collaboration between researchers, key government stakeholders, data/computer scientists, and patients and their families,” says Dr. Sean Young, Executive Director of the University of California Institute for Prediction Technology.
The hackathon will feature many speakers, including Mona Siddiqui, MD, MPH (Chief Data Officer, US Department of Health and Human Services), Captain Helena Williams (Head of the Impaired Driving Unit, California Highway Patrol), Tony Rackauckas (Orange County District Attorney), Brian Mittman, PhD (Research Scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Department of Research and Evaluation, Division of Health Services Research and Implementation Science) and other high-level politicians, researchers, patients, and families affected by the opioid crisis.
This event is made possible by funding to support research by UCLA from the National Institutes of Health Helping to End Addiction Long-Term (HEAL) Initiative through the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), as well as from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). To achieve these aims, the implementation science behind Hackathons will be studied through surveys and interviews given to Hackathon participants. The funding will also allow for Hackathon winners to have support in developing and implementing their solutions into public health.
Opioid West Hack-A-Thon+ 2018 is currently taking applications, and is accepting up to 25 teams on a rolling basis. If interested in participating, please visit http://theopioidhackathon.com/ to apply today. If you are interested in coming to watch the event, please register for free at https://tinyurl.com/y7xh34ft.
