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For the first time, the National Institute on Drug Abuse is collaborating with APA's Scientific Program Committee to offer a special track of sessions at APA's annual meeting that will bring cutting-edge, science-based developments in drug abuse research to annual meeting participants.
The track includes 30 sessions ranging from lectures and symposia to workshops and training sessions presented by leading scientists in substance abuse research. Particular emphasis will be placed on the application of research findings to clinical practice. In addition to this program track, there are numerous high-quality sessions on drug abuse and its treatment on the scientific program this year.
A pamphlet listing the time and location of all track sessions will be included in the packet distributed to registrants at the Toronto Convention Centre.
"NIDA is pleased to have collaborated with APA's Scientific Program Committee on this event," said NIDA Director Alan Leshner, Ph.D., in an interview. "NIDA is committed to disseminating our state-of-the-science research results to a wide variety of audiences, including psychiatrists. We are hoping that this track will also help us attract new investigators to the field and promote an exchange between drug abuse researchers and the community of research and practicing psychiatrists."
APA Medical Director Steven M. Mirin, M.D., noted that the time is right for such an educational collaboration. "This exposure is sorely needed at a time when benefits for the care of patients with substance use disorders are continually being cut back and in many health care plans are below those provided for the care of other forms of mental illness-and far below those provided for general health care problems."
Moreover, Mirin observed, the field has witnessed an important expansion of knowledge on the treatment of patients with substance use disorders and the development of promising pharmacotherapies, such as the use of Naltrexone in patients with alcohol dependence. In an era of cost-driven health care delivery, outcome studies demonstrating that treatment for patients with substance use disorders is both efficacious and cost-effective are compelling to those holding the purse strings.
"Every $1 invested in treatment," said Mirin, "saves more than $7 in preventable morbidity, mortality, and lost productivity and decreases criminal activity, and other medical, social, and occupational benefits."
Mirin hopes that APA members attending the track sessions will come away "with a renewed sense of hope and purpose and will further spread the word as to the progress we are making in both our understanding and the treatment of patients with substance use disorders."
Like Mirin, Leshner said that he hopes another message conveyed by the sessions is that "people will see drug abuse and addiction research as an exciting field they might want to become more involved in. Given that drug addiction is a brain disease expressed as a behavioral disorder in a social context, we need more M.D. researchers involved in the study of this disease. There are far too few physician researchers in this field."
To address that problem, said Mirin, APA was recently awarded a grant of more than $3.5 million from NIDA to be used to support the training of promising young researchers in the field (Psychiatric News, April 17).
While acknowledging that the emergence of managed care has impacted negatively on the delivery of drug abuse treatment, Leshner believes that "the hopeful side of the coin is that there are many opportunities that exist to improve the quality of substance abuse treatment services. NIDA supports a diverse health services research portfolio that studies the impact of the organization, financing, and management of health services on the quality, cost, access to, and outcomes of drug abuse treatment."
For example, he said, NIDA-supported research centers at Brandeis and Harvard are assessing the impact of managed care on drug abuse treatment availability, content, duration, utilization, financing, and organization. The knowledge gleaned from such work can help policymakers, providers, and consumers assess managed care strategies and improve overall program design.
Topics to be addressed in the APA/NIDA track include the genetics of substance abuse by Floyd Bloom, M.D., Ph.D., treatment efficacy by Charles O'Brien, M.D., Ph.D., parity and managed care by Sheldon Miller, M.D., new approaches for opiate detoxification by Herbert Kleber, M.D., AIDS and addiction by Stephen J. Ferrando, M.D., women's issues in drug abuse by Kathleen Brady, M.D., Ph.D., behavioral therapies by Charles R. Schuster, Ph.D., medications development by Tom Kosten, M.D., and smoking cessation by John Hughes, M.D.