By bringing together MSU faculty, students, volunteers, and staff working on the topic of addiction, the Addiction Consortium on Research & Education Network (ACORN) seeks to change the lives of those impacted by substance use through our collective expertise in community engagement, advocacy, public policy, research, patient care, and teaching.
Led by Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine and University Outreach and Engagement with support from the School of Social Work, ACORN serves as a central hub for improving the lives of those impacted by substance use. Its activities touch communities within MSU, throughout the state of Michigan, and across the nation.
ACORN’s work revolves around the following five pillars:
- Community Engagement: Supporting and fostering community partnerships.
- Clinical Support: Leveraging existing collaborations to create an innovative, comprehensive addiction treatment service network in partnership with Henry Ford Health.
- Research: Centering our research on a health equity framework in addiction science, focusing on community assessments and stakeholder engagement.
- Education: Growing anti-stigma substance use disorder teaching, training, and education and coupling these with ongoing research.
- Advocacy: Being a nidus for state and national advocacy to support equitable, evidence-based legislation and policymaking.
Potential Impact
- Transform public policy for populations experiencing significant adversities.
- Build on our expertise in engagement, clinical care, research, education, and advocacy to produce revolutionary impacts.
- Generate our response to the urgent call to action and position MSU as a national leader in multidisciplinary and multipronged transformative care for the most vulnerable individuals and communities experiencing the harms of addiction.