June 26, 2026 | Erin Bluvas, bluvase@sc.edu
The SC Center for Excellence in Addiction is making statewide advances in the fight against the opioid epidemic. The state’s three major research institutions – along with the SC Office of Substance Use Services (OSUS) and SC Department of Public Health – have been working together tirelessly to lay the groundwork for prevention and treatment for decades to come.
“Since its inception, the Center has focused on strengthening South Carolina’s response to substance use disorders through coordinated, practical support to communities across the state,” says executive director Lara Raymond, who is a 2015 alumna of the MSPH in Epidemiology program. “Over the past three years, it has developed into a statewide hub for technical assistance, data analytics, and training. None of this would have been possible without the deep commitment and knowledge brought by each of these partners to this collaborative effort.”
Announced by Governor Henry McMaster and OSUS director and Arnold School alumna Sara Goldsby (MPH in HSPM ’15) in December of 2022, the Center offers a centralized response to the complex factors underlying the state’s addiction crisis by convening and applying expertise and resources through a multipronged approach. With leadership from each of the major universities, the team offers Data Analytics (University of South Carolina), Technical Assistance (Clemson University), and Training and Education (Medical University of South Carolina) services to the state.
The integrated effort is a response to South Carolina’s continued work to improve treatment for opioid use disorder, which is reflected in the poor national health rankings the state has received for many years. Since its inception, the Center has already discovered that less than half of SC adults on Medicaid or uninsured are starting treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) following an OUD diagnosis. Continued retention in treatment is also a challenge.
Led by health services policy and management professor Christina Andrews, the Data Analytics Core has been hard at work translating complex health data into actionable insights. They leverage the expertise and infrastructure of other groups, such as the USC Big Data Health Science Center, to triangulate data from numerous sources (e.g., prescription claims, county records, treatment program data, emergency department visits) to create tools like the SC Opioid Treatment Data Dashboard, which is designed to support clinical, policy and community decision-making.
“Prior to the collaborative efforts of the Center for Addiction Excellence, little information was available about access to OUD treatment in South Carolina,” Andrews says. “Over the past few years, our work together has enabled us to answer several important questions about OUD treatment in South Carolina that had remained unanswered: How many people in the state are living with OUD? How many have been diagnosed? How many have received any treatment? We can now answer these questions at the county level and across age, sex, race, and ethnicity, giving us a much clearer picture of where needs exist and how care is being delivered. This type of data can help inform interventions and allocate resources all the way down to the local level in a way that simply wasn’t possible before.”
Under the guidance of Alain Litwin, who has roles with Clemson, USC, and Prisma Health, the Technical Assistance Core has been building the capacity of partners across the state who are on the frontlines of the addiction epidemic. Working with county and municipal leaders, nonprofit organizations and other agencies, the team has conducted more than 500 consultations to support these communities in their efforts to more deeply understand how to implement evidence-based strategies for ending addiction. They have also facilitated ongoing connections among nearly three dozen opioid response professionals and coordinators to strengthen shared best practices and collaborations.
Part of this work involves a call line facilitated through Prisma, where providers from around the state can ask for help. These clinicians might not have experience treating a patient with opioid use disorder, and the call line operators provide guidance on how to initiate treatment and stick with it.
MUSC’s Kathleen Brady leads the Training and Education Core, which delivers training through the Community Opioid Response Initiatives ECHO program. ECHO, which stands for Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes, has already held more than 50 training sessions and engaged over 1500 attendees in 70% of SC counties to improve quality of care and answer questions about the cascade of substance use disorder care.
Evidence-based and cost-efficient, the ECHO program develops and delivers a responsive curriculum and telementoring services that are tailored to the needs of agencies and stakeholders across the state. All programming is aligned with statewide opioid response priorities and has thus far included widespread clinical and peer support training as well as cross-training initiatives to strengthen care for individuals with co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders.
In addition to these three key areas where the Center is creating new and innovative approaches to fighting the addiction crisis, the team has also become integral to broader efforts to engage stakeholders in future planning. The Center brings together opioid response professionals and partners through events such as the SC Governor’s Summit on Addiction where attendees share information, identify needs and align strategies across agencies and communities.
“It takes time to build collaboration and infrastructure across an entire state, and
these couple years of capacity building and connecting with all of the stakeholders
have been instrumental to South Carolina’s ability to fight the addiction crisis,”
says Raymond, who notes that the Center has already published five peer-reviewed papers
and plans to continue sharing its lessons learned. “With continued support from agencies
like the SC Opioid Recovery Fund Board, the long-term potential for the Center to
end this epidemic in the Palmetto State could serve as a model for other states and
result in tremendous improvements in the health and well-being of South Carolinians
for generations to come.”
