Jennifer McNeely, MD

Personal Statement

I am a clinician investigator whose research focuses on improving the identification and treatment of unhealthy substance use in general medical settings.  As such, my work involves collaborating with medical providers, health systems, and public health authorities to develop, implement, and study the effectiveness of substance use interventions in real-world clinical settings.  My research spans screening, prevention, and treatment of opioid and other substance use disorders, and I have experience conducting randomized clinical trials, measure validation studies, pragmatic trials, and implementation research.  Over the past decade, many of my studies have been multi-site trials conducted in the NIDA Clinical Trials Network (CTN), and in 2023 I became the MPI of the New York Node of the CTN.  I have been a leader in developing and validating screening tools for the identification of drug and alcohol use during routine medical visits.  My screening studies were included in the 2020 United States Preventive Services Task Force systematic review on screening for illicit drug use that led to a recommendation to screen for drug use in primary care.  My current research includes studies of hospital inpatient addiction consult services, implementation of electronic health record-integrated screening in primary care, collaborative care for prevention of opioid use disorder, patient self-administered screening tools and clinical decision support, and secondary overdose prevention in hospital emergency departments.  As Co-Director of the Section on Tobacco, Alcohol, and Drug Use in the Department of Population Health, I mentor junior faculty and trainees and forge new collaborations, proposals, and projects in addictions research.  Finally, as a primary care and addiction medicine physician at Bellevue Hospital, I experience first-hand the benefits of early intervention, integrated care, and pharmacotherapy for treatment of opioid use disorder, as well as barriers to the delivery of this care.