Zoom Meeting: Register Here.

Deanna Wilson, MD, MPH

Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

As one out of every ten deaths among young adults is now related to opioids, it is crucial to understand ways to mitigate risk and reduce opioid-related harms.  Young adults experience high rates of opioid-related morbidity and mortality and those who inject opioids are a particularly vulnerable group.  Infectious bacterial complications of injection drug use, such as infective endocarditis, are increasingly common among this age group and often lead to lengthy and expensive hospitalizations.  Hospitalization presents an opportunity—often missed—to link patients into treatment for their opioid use disorder. In this presentation, Dr. Wilson will share some early findings related to a study examining the experiences of vulnerable adults hospitalized with complications from injection drug use and the healthcare providers caring for them. She will outline directions for future research to improve clinical care and reduce opioid-related morbidity and mortality among this population.