The International Pain Policy Initiative seeks health professionals (for example oncologists, AIDS clinicians, pharmacists, pain and palliative care physicians), health care administrators, policy experts, social workers, or lawyers from low- or middle-income countries who have an interest in drug policy advocacy to improve availability of opioid analgesics for pain relief and palliative care. International Pain Policy Fellowships provide recipients with the knowledge and skills necessary to develop and implement a project to evaluate national policy and improve the availability of pain medications in their respective countries.

Fellowship Components

Training Program

Fellows will participate in a five-day learner-centered training program at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin, October 22-26, 2007. Attendance at this program is required. The program will cover the relationships between disease, pain, palliative care, inadequate opioid availability, and government. It will examine regulatory barriers, resources for evaluating national policy as well as examples. Topics will include:

• Prevalence of cancer and HIV/AIDS, pain and the need for opioids
• Recommendations from the World Health Organization and other international organizations
• Key international regulatory concepts and terminology relating to addiction/drug dependence
• Trends in opioid availability; use of data bases and information from the United Nations to assess the situation in a country
• The nature and extent of opioid availability/unavailability
• Reasons for unavailability
• The international legal framework for drug control and availability
• The responsibilities of national governments to ensure availability
• WHO guidelines for achieving balance in national opioids control policies
• Application of the guidelines, examples of national policy evaluation and improvement projects
• Advocacy and working with national narcotic regulators and non-government organizations
• Restrictions on “attempts to influence legislation” that are applicable to all OSI grantees (U.S. tax law prohibits use of OSI funds for such attempts, known as “lobbying”)
• Implementation of WHO foundation measures (policy, education, drug availability) at the institutional level
• Anticipating and responding to the possibility of drug diversion
• Evaluation of outcomes
• Review of bibliographies, articles, and monographs

In-Country Project

Each fellow will be responsible for outlining their drug availability project plan and timeline during the training program in Madison, and then implementing it during the remainder of the fellowship.

Mentorship

For the remainder of the two-year period, the staff of PPSG will be in frequent contact with each fellow to provide technical support related to their in-country project.

Deadline

Deadline for receipt of completed applications: 5:00 p.m. EST Friday, June 15, 2007.

Guidelines and Application

For further information and application materials, please see the International Pain Policy Fellowship guidelines page.

The fellowship is funded by the International Palliative Care Initiative of the OSI Public Health Program. It is directed by David E. Joranson and Karen M. Ryan, Pain & Policy Studies Group (PPSG), University of Wisconsin Paul P. Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center, Madison, Wisconsin.