The NIH HEAL Initiative 2021 Annual Report details high-level areas of progress and accomplishments that the initiative achieved by the end of fiscal year 2020. The NIH HEAL Initiative has invested more than $1.5 billion, representing more than 500 research projects across the United States. Many of these projects are returning actionable results, and strong partnerships with stakeholders have created valuable channels for dissemination of research findings. The NIH HEAL Initiative 2021 Annual Report details dozens of research findings across the initiative’s pain and addiction research portfolio that improve treatment delivery and expand options, advance promising therapeutics, build on clinical research infrastructure, and identify non-opioid targets for both pain and OUD.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with increases in opioid misuse and overdose deaths, and intensified contributors to pain and addiction, the NIH HEAL Initiative research community has met this moment in extraordinary ways to adapt existing knowledge toward OUD prevention and treatment, generate therapeutics in record time, and leverage available infrastructure and research capacity.

Download PDF of  the NIH Health Initiative Research in Action report here.