Community Health & Wellness

International research center to work with Pierce County on combatting opioid addiction

Posted on February 17th, 2025 By: Conor Wilson

An international research center has agreed to study two programs in Pierce County aimed at improving outcomes for people with opioid use disorders.

Researchers from the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) North America will evaluate the effectiveness of a mobile outreach program providing medication-assisted treatment to those outside Tacoma. They will also look at how extending stays at county detox facilities affects a patient’s future results.

J-PAL, which describes itself as a global research center working to reduce poverty through science-based policy, selected Pierce County Human Services as one of four partner jurisdictions. Joining Pierce County are the city of Los Angeles, the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Police Department and San Diego County.

J-PAL will provide Pierce County and the other jurisdictions with funding and technical help.

Opioid dollars

Margo Burnison, Pierce County’s behavioral health manager, said the partnership connects the county with researchers who can determine whether their approaches to combating the opioid crisis are effective.

Research will be particularly valuable as the county decides how to spend the remainder of its one-time money to support opioid-prevention programs. The county is set to receive an estimated $37 million in increments over the next two decades stemming from state and federal lawsuits against companies that contributed to the crisis.

Opioid overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death in Pierce County, according to the Tacoma-Pierce County Public Health District, outnumbering car crashes and firearm deaths.

Mobile outreach

Burnison said the county is developing a mobile outreach program to deliver medications, including buprenorphine, to those with opioid use disorders living in rural or suburban areas. The vans will target areas with high concentrations of opioid-related 911 calls outside Tacoma.

Medications used to treat opioid use disorder provide relief from intense withdrawals and cravings, without inducing the euphoric highs or overdose risks from problem opioids like fentanyl. That can make it easier for someone to meaningfully engage with treatment or therapy.

Yet these services — even in mobile form — are primarily in the city. Residents in other parts of the county generally have to travel for these medications, lowering their chance of routine engagement, Burnison said.

“We’re looking at how we get services out to the areas that we know are struggling with opioid overdoses,” she said. “Our goal is to target as many rural areas as we can. Places where we just know there’s no active services happening.”

The county plans to solicit bids for the project in the next couple of weeks, Burnison said. They hope to have the program running this summer.

Detox beds

Pierce County also plans to examine how extending the time someone spends in a detox facility affects their recovery. The length of stay in detox has not been evaluated in about 20 years, Burnison said.

Right now, people spend three to five days in a detox bed. Burnison said they are finding that people coming off drugs need a bit more time.

“Medically, they may appear stable enough to go onto the next stage of recovery, but they’re not quite there yet,” she said. “We’re seeing them not be successful once they go to inpatient or once they get back into their lives.”

The county wants to try a 10- to 12-day stay. They say the amount of time people need to come off drugs has changed with the introduction of more potent substances, like fentanyl.

Pierce County currently has 32 public detox beds and hopes to make 10 or 12 available for its long-term stay experiment. The exact number is still under negotiation. All agreements should be in place in a few weeks, Burison said.

Detox facilities are severely lacking across the state. Treatment providers and first responders on the Kitsap Peninsula say residents sometimes must go as far away as Eastern Washington for an available bed.

“We’re going to limit the amount of beds that we can actually keep open for that long so that we’re not completely overwhelming the system,” Burnison said. “The bed shortage is still a big thing, so it’s going to be a balancing act.”