The University of Washington https://washingto.edu/research received a contract for a project first awarded in 2019 but now totaling $1,026,855 from NSF to address the national emergency of opioid overdose in the U.S using technology.
At high doses, opioids can cause rapid cessation of breathing, respiratory failure and death, Unlike many life threatening medical emergencies, opioid toxicity can be readily reversed with rapid identification and administration of the overdose antidote naloxone.
Researchers are working on the project to design and deploy solutions to detect opioid overdose by identifying respiratory precursors. Technologies will be developed to aid opioid overdose detection that will use wearable sensors and mobile devices.
For example, if the research is successful, this will enable the design of a novel, low barrier harm-reduction intervention solution to track breathing in a contactless manner by using active sonar to detect critical respiratory precursors when opioid overdose exists.
The research team will work with existing industry collaborators to enable tech transfer to enable transitioning the developed technologies to industry. Also, a new graduate course on mobile health will be developed to bring together computing and engineering students from the health sciences.
Go to https://nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1914873&HistoricalAwards=false for more information on the NSF funding awarded to the University of Washington. The Program Manager can be reached at wnisen@nsf.gov.