Dr. Fallin-Bennett is a passionate advocate for harm reduction, recovery, and evidence-based treatment of substance use disorders and tobacco. She was a co-investigator on the NIDA funded University of Kentucky HEALing Communities Study (PI Walsh) and the Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN; PI Staton). Her role in this studies is to oversee the implementation recovery coaching programs that are designed to reduce opioid overdose death through linkage to and retention on medications for opioid use disorder. Across these two large scale studies, she helped implemented recovery coach led MOUD linkage and retention in over 80 agencies (e.g, syringe service programs, harm reduction housing services, opioid treatment programs) across 20 Kentucky counties with high overdose rates. Dr. Fallin-Bennett is on the leadership team of the Survivors Union of the Bluegrass, a University of Kentucky Community Advisory Board made up of people who use drugs and people in non-abstinence based recovery. Dr. Fallin-Bennett was also the PI of an NCI funded R01 designed to identify barriers and facilitators to evidence based tobacco policy in rural southern states, with a goal of promoting health equity. She is also a co-founder of Voices of Hope, a local recovery community organization.
