Search

What accounts for variation across racial and ethnic groups in drug use and harms related to substance use? While explanatory mechanisms for racial and ethnic disparities include differential access to and use of health services, a myriad of other factors, including racism and historical trauma, contribute to drug-related disparities. Furthermore, the addiction scientific workforce, like the full biomedical research enterprise, lacks diversity. This deficit undercuts U.S. scientific leadership and is a major challenge for the field. To address these entrenched problems, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is prioritizing research on health disparities and supporting multiple efforts to enhance scientific workforce diversity. Studies on substance use trends and emerging threats must measure disparities and track progress in reducing disparities, but also acknowledge the limitations of race and ethnicity-based data. Researchers must take the bold step of proposing studies that elucidate causal mechanisms which have the potential to be ameliorated by novel policies and practices. Critically, the impact of racism on all aspects of the substance use trajectory must be assessed to better tailor prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery-support interventions to the specific circumstances of those who need them. Particular attention should be given to people who are incarcerated, who are experiencing homelessness, and who have a history of adverse childhood experiences. Training the next generation of the addiction science workforce needs to address structural barriers to participation with partnerships between funders, such as NIDA, and grantee organizations., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest Unrelated to the submitted work, Compton reports ownership of stock in General Electric Co., 3M Co., and Pfizer Inc. Other authors have no conflicts to disclose., (Published by Elsevier B.V.)

The National Institutes of Health established the Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) program to promote basic research on the initiation, personalization, and maintenance of health behavior change. The SOBC Resource and Coordinating Center now leads and supports activities to maximize the creativity, productivity, scientific rigor, and dissemination of the experimental medicine approach and experimental design resources. Here, we highlight those resources, including the Checklist for Investigating Mechanisms in Behavior-change Research (CLIMBR) guidelines introduced in this special section. We describe the ways in which SOBC can be applied across a range of domains and contexts, and end by considering ways to extend SOBC's perspective and reach, so as to best promote behavior change linked with health, quality of life, and well-being., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

There is considerable variability in the use of outcome measures in clinical trials for cannabis use disorder (CUD), and a lack of consensus regarding optimal outcomes may have hindered development and approval of new pharmacotherapies. The goal of this paper is to summarize an evaluation of assessment measures and clinical endpoints for CUD clinical trials, and propose a research agenda and priorities to improve CUD clinical outcome assessments. The primary recommendation is that sustained abstinence from cannabis should not be considered the primary outcome for all CUD clinical trials as it has multiple limitations. However, there are multiple challenges to the development of a reliable and valid indicator of cannabis reduction, including the lack of a standard unit of measure for the various forms of cannabis and products and the limitations of currently available biological and self-report assessments. Development of a core toolkit of assessments is needed to both allow flexibility for study design, while facilitating interpretation of outcomes across trials. Four primary agenda items for future research are identified to expedite development of improved clinical outcome assessments for this toolkit: (1) determine whether minimally invasive biologic assays could identify an acute level of cannabis use associated with psychomotor impairment or other cannabis-related harms; (2) create an indicator of quantity of cannabis use that is consistent across product types; (3) examine the presence of cannabis-specific functional outcomes; and (4) identify an optimal duration to assess changes in CUD diagnostic criteria., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

High rates of co-occurrence between posttraumatic stress (PTS) and substance use disorders (SUDs) have led to the suggestion that substance use among individuals experiencing PTS symptoms might serve a self-medication function. However, research is still needed to provide a more comprehensive evaluation of the unique associations between PTS symptom clusters and substances (licit and illicit) with both anxiolytic/depressant and stimulant properties. Consequently, this study examined the relationship between severity of different PTS symptom clusters and heroin, crack/cocaine, and alcohol dependence among 48 treatment-seeking SUD patients with a history of traumatic exposure. No evidence was found for a relationship between PTS symptom clusters and crack/cocaine or alcohol dependence; however, results suggested a relationship between hyperarousal and avoidance (inversely related) symptoms and heroin dependence. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding motivations underlying the substance of choice among individuals with PTS symptoms, as well as the development of treatments for co-occurring PTS and SUDs.

The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) was administered to a sample of 26 high school-aged adolescents to test the utility of the BART as a behavioural measure of risk-taking propensity. Data indicate that riskyness on the BART was related to self-reported engagement in real-world risk-taking behaviours. These data replicate and uniquely extend past research to an adolescent sample, suggesting that the BART may be a useful addition to self-report batteries for the assessment of risk-taking behaviours in adolescents.