We help prevent and reduce the impact of substance use and substance use disorder, or SUD, in rural communities nationwide. With specialists in adult and pediatric behavioral health, addiction medicine and substance use disorder treatment, primary care, emergency medicine, and surgery, we identify best practices for preventing substance use and SUD and partner with rural communities to adapt them to local needs.

We listen to and learn from our rural partners to understand their needs and offer support through informative resources and collaboration on the design and implementation of programs. We have offered training programs for health care providers and resources on topics including suicide prevention, overdose prevention, treatment of SUD in primary care, and reducing stigma in care settings.

Launched in 2019, our Rural Center of Excellence focused on best practices to prevent overdose deaths and make it easier for people with SUD in rural communities to find care. Today, our mission has evolved to focus more upstream on preventing the onset and progression of SUD. We collaborate with two other Rural Centers of Excellence — the University of Vermont Center on Rural Addiction and the Fletcher Group. Together, we serve rural communities across the areas of SUD prevention, treatment, and recovery.

We're working to prevent substance use and SUD in youth. Knowing that childhood trauma can increase risk of SUD, we're engaged in a community-based, trauma-informed approach with rural partners. To prevent and reduce vaping among teens, we're developing resources and programs in collaboration with rural schools and health care providers. To reduce the risk of opioid use disorder (OUD), we're equipping health care providers in rural areas with best practices to both provide treatment for chronic pain and manage pain after surgery. Through educational resources for providers and patients — on prescribing, safe disposal of medicines, and non-opioid approaches — we're working to prevent OUD while helping patients find the pain management care they need.

We’re partnering to reduce the stigma around SUD that affects individuals and families, including stigma related to evidence-based medications for opioid use disorder. We're striving to remove these barriers that stand in the way of prevention, treatment, and recovery.

Through Community Conversations workshops and facilitator trainings nationwide, we're striving to make a sustainable impact in rural communities in the area of reducing stigma. Through collaborative, community-based programs, we're helping rural partners build sustainable solutions for preventing SUD and reducing nicotine use among youth. And through partnerships with primary care practices, hospitals, and other care settings, we're building rural organizations’ capacity to deliver pain-management care while decreasing the risk of opioid use disorder.