• Ngo, Keyhani, Leonard, Hoggatt. Substance use and use disorders among Veterans on long-term opioid therapy. Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports. 2025 Sep 1; 16:100347, DOI: 10.1016/j.dadr.2025.100347.
• Scorsone, Carey, Nolan, Hale, Krebs, Frank. Perceived Companionship Is Associated with Pain Severity but Not Opioid Tapering Among Veterans with Chronic Pain. Journal of general internal medicine. 2025 May 8 DOI: 10.1007/s11606-025-09562-y.
• Becker, Seal, Nelson, DeRonne, Kats, Morasco, Frank, Makris, Painter, Allen, Mixon, Bohnert, Reznik, Hagedorn, Hammett, Borsari, Baxley, Krebs, VOICE Study Group. Buprenorphine, Pain, and Opioid Use in Patients Taking High-Dose Long-Term Opioids: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA internal medicine. 2025 Apr 1; 185(4):372-381, DOI: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2024.8361.
• Bin Noor N, Pro G, Acharya M, Eswaran H, Hayes CJ. Association between different modalities of opioid use disorder-related care delivery and opioid use disorder-related patient outcomes: A retrospective cohort study. Addictive behaviors reports. 2025 Jun 1; 21:100588.
• Ganz DA, Lai J, Cantor JH, Agniel D, Simon K, Stein BD, Taylor EA. Medications for opioid use disorder in traditional medicare beneficiaries: associations with age. Health Affairs Scholar. 2025 Feb 1; 3(2):qxaf036, DOI: 10.1093/haschl/qxaf036.

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• Absence of Brief Intervention Following Positive Alcohol Screen Associated with Increased Opioid-Related Risks within a Year
  This study used electronic health record data to examine the association between primary care-delivered alcohol-related brief intervention (BI) and new opioid prescriptions, new opioid use disorder (OUD) diagnosis, or new opioid-related hospitalization in Veterans one year after a positive screen for alcohol use. Findings showed that 13% of Veterans in the sample screened positive for unhealthy al...
  
  Date: May 1, 2024
• Giving Veterans an Active Voice in Creating a Veteran-Centered Chronic Pain Research Agenda
  Veterans Action League (VAL) 2.0 was a two-year community engagement project (2019–2021) that sought to develop a national Veteran-centered chronic pain research agenda that includes Veteran-generated recommendations for chronic pain management and chronic pain research priorities. Findings showed that Veterans’ most frequently cited need for chronic pain management and treatment was better access...
  
  Date: March 23, 2023
• VA Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder was Maintained During the COVID Pandemic Through Rapid Shift to Telehealth
  At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, key federal policy changes were implemented to decrease barriers to telehealth-delivery of buprenorphine, a life-saving medication treatment for patients with opioid use disorder (OUD). This study examined the impact of these COVID-19 policies on buprenorphine treatment across different modalities (telephone, video, and in-person visits). Findings showed tha...
  
  Date: July 28, 2022
• Antipsychotic Prescribing Decreased in VA Nursing Homes, but Prescribing Alternative Drugs, such as Opioids, Increased
  This study sought to evaluate national trends in prescribing antipsychotic and other central nervous system (CNS)-active medications for Veterans with dementia residing in VA nursing homes, as well as how use has changed over time. Findings showed that antipsychotic use steadily decreased between FY2009 and FY2018 (from 34% to 28%), with similar declines in anxiolytic prescribing (from 34% to 27%)...
  
  Date: May 26, 2022
• Predictive Tool Associated with 22% Lower Odds of All-Cause Mortality among High-Risk Veterans Taking Opioids
  In 2018, VA mandated a case review intervention that targeted patients who had been prescribed opioid analgesics and who were at high risk of adverse outcomes. The Stratification Tool for Opioid Risk Mitigation (STORM), a provider-facing dashboard that uses predictive analytics to stratify patients prescribed opioids based on their risk for overdose/suicide, was developed to identify these patient...
  
  Date: May 2, 2022

» View more Publication Briefs

» View more Studies

Engagement Panels Bring Veterans' Perspectives to Pain/Opioid AMP Research Priorities (03-11-2024)

Pain/Opioid CORE Veteran Engagement Panel Brings Veterans' Perspective to HSR&D Research (03-02-2022)

VOICE Study Partners with Veteran Engagement Panel to Improve Pain Care, Reduce Harms of Opioid Therapy (05-03-2021)

Evidence Brief: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) for Chronic Pain, PTSD, TBI, Opioid Addiction, and Sexual Trauma (02-04-2021)

Evidence Brief - Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) for Chronic Pain, PTSD, TBI, Opioid Addiction, and Sexual Trauma (12-16-2020)

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Other Resources

• Learn more about VA HSR’s State of the Art conferences on opioid safety and non-pharmacological approaches to chronic musculoskeletal pain management.
• Learn more about the Quality Enhancement Research Initiative’s IMPROVE project, which focuses on integrating pain support in primary care in order to decrease the number of Veterans using opioid therapy for pain management.
• Visit the VA Office of Research & Development’s Substance Use Disorders (SUD) topic page for information about milestones in SUD research across all VA research services.