ADAI News

UW Recruiting Young Adults age 18-20 in Study of Health Related Behaviors

Project EPIC is a study on young adults health and risk behaviors conducted by the University of Washington. The study aims to explore health-related behaviors, including alcohol use and sexual behaviors. The project is seeking participants who are 18-20 years old and are currently living in the United States with the long-term goal of studying health behaviors during the transition to adulthood. This is a national study conducted online.

The 1st step is to complete a 5-minute confidential survey.  

For more information, check out Project EPIC on the web!

BASICS Intervention Adapted for Tribal College & Universities

Two ambitious drug and alcohol studies were launched this spring by the UW's Center for Indigenous Health Research, part of the IWRI-NCE, in partnership with tribal colleges and the UW’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute and the Center for the Study of Health and Risk Behaviors. One, the Tribal Colleges and Universities Behavioral Health Adaptation of an Evidence-Based Intervention (TCU-BASICS), proposes to create a specific cultural modification of the BASICS intervention which has not yet been tested or modified with American Indian and Alaska Native students. The second study is the TCU Alcohol, Drugs and Mental Health Epidemiologic Behavioral Wellness Study (TCU ADME).

The TCU-BASICS study is being conducted in tandem with the TCU-ADME. This will be the first-ever survey conducted at 24 (out of 37) TCU that measures the prevalence of alcohol, drugs and mental health issues among students. It delves into and introduces Native-specific factors such as historical trauma and environmental colonialism that are often ignored or missing in mainstream surveys. The TCU-ADME study will be launched in the 2014-2015 fall academic term and will serve as the baseline for the TCU-BASICS study. Out of the 24 TCU participating in the survey, six TCU will be BASICS intervention sites; the small number of intervention sites is reflective of federal funding limitations. However, the manual that the research team will generate from the Native-specific adaptation of BASICS holds the promise of becoming an invaluable tool applicable to all TCU.

Read more...

ADAI Small Grant Awards for March 2014

ADAI awarded three Small Grants for the March 2014 round of applications.  Congratulations to the recipients!

Susan Searles Nielsen, PhD, Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, Innate DNA Demethylation Capacity as a Contributor to Smoking Initiation

Frank J. Schwebel, BS, Graduate Student, Psychology, Using Text Message Reminders to Help Adolescents Remain Mindful of Their Commitment to Drug Abstinence

Lauren K. Whiteside, MD, UW Emergency Medicine and Harborview Medical Center, Automated Screening and Collaborative Care in the ED for Trauma Patients With Prescription Drug Misuse: An Open Feasibility Trial

You can read abstracts of these projects here.

The next deadline for ADAI Small Grant applications is October 15, 2014.  You can read more about ADAI Small Grants Program and application process on the ADAI Small Grant web page.

Postdoc Position at UW: Substance Use & Psychometrics Research

A half-time post-doctoral fellowship is availble, beginning Summer 2014 through January 2015. The fellow will be appointed as a Research Associate in the Department of Psychology at the UW, working with Brian P. Flaherty, PhD Associate Professor. 

The fellow will focus on applied latent class analysis, mixture models, and other latent variable models within the domains of substance use and psychometrics research. Work will focus on theoretically-oriented application and evaluation of these models. Fellows are expected to assist in data preparation, analysis, and to participate in the preparation of articles for publication.

Applicants must have: (a) a Ph.D. in a behavioral, social, quantitative, or health-related field; (b) background in substance use research; (c) solid familiarity with latent variable models, including latent class and mixture models.

View full description and application information.

Is Naloxone 'Stigma' a Barrier to Prescribing for Overdose Prevention?

Although giving out naloxone to patients at high risk of overdose sounds like a good idea, researchers who work with the drug say the stigma surrounding its use may be a barrier to wider uptake among both patients and doctors, according to an article by Kristina Fiore in the online Medpage Today.

Patients may feel they're being treated like addicts and that their opioid prescriptions will be tempered, while doctors worry that just talking about naloxone may scare patients away, said Caleb Banta-Green, PhD, MPH, of the UW's Alcohol & Drug Abuse Institute.

"Both doctors and patients feel like they're under the microscope," Banta-Green told MedPage Today. "It's a very sensitive time."

Banta-Green and his colleagues are enrolling patients at high risk for opioid overdose -- both heroin users and patients on prescription opioids -- in a randomized trial to test whether providing naloxone, along with education and counseling, can reduce overdose.

Read more ...

UW Ranks in Top 10 Schools for Programs in Addiction

In its annual ranking of graduate programs, U.S. News & World Report ranked the UW School of Medicine No. 1 overall for primary care.

The UW ranked 9th in the category of Best Drug and Alcohol Programs.  Graduate programs in this category incorporate behavioral science, treatment and prevention techniques for patients with addictions.

In addition, UW gained high marks for teaching in several specialty areas, including No. 1 in both family medicine and rural medicine, fourth in AIDS education, fifth in pediatrics, and seventh in both geriatrics and internal medicine.

NIDA Seminar: CBPR Perspective on Moving EBP Research into Clinical Practice

Dr. Dennis Donovan, Director of the University of Washington Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, has been invited by NIDA’s Office of Diversity and Health Disparities to present at the NIDA Special Populations Outreach Translational Research Seminar Series: Promoting Diversity and Moving Toward Health Equity, on March 11, 2014.  Started in 2012, this Seminar Series’ goals are to highlight a broad spectrum of NIDA or other NIH supported research that has the potential to reduce and ultimately eliminate health disparities and to highlight research that has an impact on racial/ethnic populations and communities.  The Series has also incorporated seminars related to outcomes and challenges faced by the translational process, moving from research to practice.

Dr. Donovan's presentation is entitled “A Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Perspective on Moving Evidence-Based Drug Treatment Research into Clinical Practice.” 

Slides from the presentation will be posted on the ADAI website (and linked here) after the NIDA Seminar.

Author Gabriel Maté to Visit UW Campus, Feb. 19

Physician and author Gabor Maté, MD will give a public lecture about addiction on Feb. 19 at the UW campus.  Maté's book "In  The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction" was selected for the Common Book Series for UW graduate students in the health professions in 2013.

Maté writes about the complexities of the science of addiction and about his decades of groundbreaking work with the severely addicted on Vancouver’s skid row.  His book discusses policy issues and societal factors affecting treatment and prevention of addiction in Canada and the United States.

The lecture on Feb. 19 is free and open to the public.

February 19, 2014 - 7:00 - 9:00 pm
Kane Hall, Room 120, UW Campus
Details and related events

This event is co-sponsored by the UW Health Sciences Schools.

Communities across U.S. Reduce Teen Smoking, Drinking, Violence, and Crime

Fewer high school students across the U.S. started drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, committing crimes and engaging in violence before graduation when their towns used the Communities That Care prevention system during the teens’ middle school years. 

Communities That Care was developed by researchers in the UW’s Social Development Research Group. The prevention system is led by a coalition of diverse stakeholders in each community who use surveys of young people to identify risk factors that are widespread in their town and protective factors that need strengthening.

A paper describing the long-term results of Communities That Care was published on Dec. 9, 2013 in JAMA Pediatrics.

Read more from UW News & Information...

PTSD & Alcohol Problems: Participants Needed for Treatment Study

A new study for people who have current alcohol problems and PTSD is seeking participants who will receive free treatment.  This is a University of Washington and Seattle VA study to evaluate the effectiveness of two evidence-based psychotherapies: Relapse Prevention and Cognitive Processing Therapy.

People with both PTSD and alcohol use problems have often found it difficult to get treatment that would address both sets of issues. Over the past 10 to 15 years new therapies addressing both PTSD and addictions have been developed and tested, but the results of these studies have been mixed and overall, disappointing.

This study is testing established and effective treatments that were originally designed to treat PTSD (Cognitive Processing Therapy) or addictions (Relapse Prevention) because of new information suggesting that they each can be helpful for both problems.  If true, that would expand treatment options for people with PTSD and alcohol problems.

Treatment is provided at no cost, and volunteers will be paid for pre-treatment and post-treatment assessments (up to $483).  Participants must be 18 years of age or older. Men and women, active duty military, veterans, and civilians are all welcome to participate.  Participants will be required to commute to Seattle twice a week for 6 weeks for therapy appointments.

For clinicians who have a patient who indicates an interest in the study, please have them call the UW study coordinator, Sruti Desai, at 206-543-0584.   You can also download a flyer to post in your offices:   APT Study Flyer

The study is led by Tracy Simpson, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, VA Puget Sound, and Debra Kaysen, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, University of Washington.