Individuals involved in the criminal legal system (CLS) are at greater risk for overdose than the general public.
This renewal proposal is for the JCOIN 2.0 Coordination and Translation Center (CTC), designed to advance
use of scientific knowledge on effective policies, practices, and programs in legal, community, and/or health
settings. The proposed CTC team successfully established and executed the JCOIN 1.0 CTC; one new addition
will be added from HBCU Texas Southern University. Core leaders in health-legal research and practice
disciplines include Faye S. Taxman, Amy Murphy, and Judith Wilde (Mason), Jessica Hulsey (Addiction Policy
Forum), Danielle S. Rudes (Sam Houston State University), Todd Molfenter (University of Wisconsin-Madison),
Carrie Pettus (Wellbeing & Equity Innovations), and Howard Henderson (Texas Southern University). Our
expertise covers the legal system including deflection (Taxman, Pettus, Henderson); pretrial, courts and
adjudication (Taxman, Pettus, Henderson, Murphy, Wilde); institutional corrections and jails (Taxman, Rudes,
Pettus, Henderson, Molfenter); community corrections (Taxman, Rudes, Pettus, Henderson, Murphy, Molfenter);
policing (Taxman, Henderson); prosecution and defense (Pettus, Henderson); community treatment (all), to
name a few. The team is committed to scholars and practitioners with diverse disciplines and geography. The
CTC goals are: Aim 1: Dissemination to reduce the translational gap in legal-health-community organizations;
Aim 2: Meaningful stakeholder engagement and collaboration; Aim 3: Expanded outreach and capacity building
to workforce, students, practitioners, and community organizations; and Aim 4: Implementation to reduce the
translational gap. In JCOIN 1.0, this CTC engaged researchers, practitioners, and families to access research
that can improve the delivery of prevention and treatment policies, practices, and programs. We had many
successes including a website with over 240,000 page views, 82 original eCourses and webinars that had over
6,300 course enrollments, and 40 Aced It podcasts with 11,000 downloads (as of September 30, 2023). In JCOIN
2.0, the CTC will further efforts aimed at conducting outreach, disseminating information, co-producing with
stakeholders of materials and products, conducting spread and scale-up studies, funding 14 grants, and
developing the workforce and early career researchers on JCOIN-related studies. Innovations include adding a
Lived Experience Panel to the External Advisory Panels; translating JCOIN-related research findings into
actionable steps, testing the Implementation Translation Spread and Scale-Up (I-TranSS) framework in five or
more low-cost studies, providing research experience through LEAP to 40 Scholars and 40 Investigators,
providing TA to fulfill 100 requests or more, expanding JTEC to more target audiences, and prioritizing health
equity issues in translation, dissemination, and implementation efforts. The CTC is energized to set new records
on translation and dissemination to target audiences and to impact the uptake and penetration of JCOIN and
other HEAL-funded study findings on overdose prevention and treatment strategies into everyday practice.