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Populations
Distinct groups of people within a society who share certain characteristics such as age, gender, geographic location, socioeconomic status, cultural background, or exposure to particular risk factors that may influence patterns of substance use, vulnerability to substance use disorders, and access to services. In the context of substance use systems, identifying and understanding different populations helps guide the design of prevention, treatment, recovery, and policy responses that are appropriate, equitable, and responsive to specific needs. Examples may include youth, women, people experiencing homelessness, individuals in the criminal justice system, or communities affected by specific social or economic conditions.
PROSPER Community-University Partnership Delivery System Effects on Substance Misuse
Evaluated prevention programmes are typically implemented by research teams, raising questions over real-world applicability, but a groundbreaking US trial is said to have produced a ‘robust’ demonstration of the potential of a system in...
Drug-Treatment Systems in Prisons in Eastern and South-East Europe
This research project on drug-treatment systems in prisons in Eastern and South-East Europe looks in detail into the situation of drug users among criminal justice populations and the corresponding health-care responses in nine countries in...
Effectiveness Bank Hot Topic: The ‘Forgotten’ Carers
One of our selection of hot topics on important issues which sometimes generate heated debate. Both as a treatment resource for the patient and a group needing support in their own right, families affected by substance use are, claimed a UK...
Evaluation of a Federally Funded Mass Media Campaign and Smoking Cessation in Pregnant Women
Abstract
Objectives: In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initiated a national anti-smoking campaign, Tips from Former Smokers (Tips). As a result of the campaign, quit attempts among smokers increased in the general...
Reviewing Inclusion Health: An Intervention Programme for At-Risk Populations
Inclusion Health is a framework for action that helps find ways of improving the health and well-being for socially excluded groups. These populations, who have in common adverse life experiences and risk factors, such as poverty and...
Gambling Activates the Same Brain Pathways as Substance Addiction, New Study Finds
Problem gambling in the UK is reported to affect around 590,000 people.
The condition can be treated via a range of approaches, including cognitive behavioural therapy and medication.
Published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, a...
Women and Substance Use
Abstract
Objectives: To explore contextual factors that increase vulnerabilities to negative sexual and reproductive health (SRH) outcomes and possible differences in SRH-related behaviours and the needs of women who use drugs (WUD)...
Gender Differences in the Alcohol-Related Alterations in Cortical Activity
Background: Long-term alcohol use is known to harm brain functioning in adolescence. In the central nervous system, the effects of alcohol are particularly mediated by alterations in GABAergic neurotransmission. Combining simultaneous...
Evaluation of a Novel Intervention Providing Insight into the Tobacco Industry to Prevent the Uptake of Smoking in School-Aged Children
Abstract
Objectives: Evidence from the US Truth campaign suggests that interventions focusing on tobacco industry practices and ethics may be effective in preventing youth smoking uptake. We developed, piloted and evaluated a school-based...
The Opioid Epidemic: From Evidence to Impact
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
While prescription opioids serve an invaluable role for the treatment of cancer pain and pain at the end of life, their overuse for acute and chronic non-cancer pain as well as the increasing availability of heroin and...
Like Sugar for Adults: The Effect of Non-Dependent Parental Drinking on Children & Families
This study set out to explore the effect of non-dependent parental drinking on children, making a direct link between parental drinking habits and the attitudes, behaviours and impacts reported by their children.
It explores the effect of...
Associations of Perceived Interparental Relationship, Family Harmony and Family Happiness with Smoking Intention in Never-Smoking Chinese Children and Adolescents
Abstract
Objective: To examine the associations of perceived interparental relationship, family harmony and family happiness with smoking intention in never-smoking Chinese children and adolescents in Hong Kong.
Design, settings and...
World Mental Health Day 2017
Dhaka: World Mental Health Day
Speakers at a press conference at Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM) called for taking comprehensive steps for preventing the use of drugs among women, saying that drug addiction affects women's mental health as...
Childhood Matters: Alcohol and Drug Problems from a Child Rights Perspective
Millions of children globally suffer as a consequence of the use of intoxicating substances like alcohol and illicit drugs. This is an important, but too often neglected, child rights issue. The new FORUT publication “Childhood matters”...
CICAD Hemispheric Guidelines on School-Based Prevention
As developed by CICAD's Expert Group on Demand Reduction and approved by the Commission in 2004, these guidelines speak to strategies to conduct research, create educational materials, train teachers, and carry out and evaluate prevention...
National Academy of Medicine Releases New Special Publication Guide
September 21, 2017
Halting the opioid epidemic requires aggressive action across multiple dimensions, including informed, active, and determined front-line leadership from health clinicians working in every setting throughout the nation...
New National Alcohol Policy launched by Minster of Health
The new National Alcohol Policy for Malawi has been in the making since 2008, a process originally initiated by a group of NGOs. On the 18th of August almost ten years later the Minister of Health, Atupele Muluzi, could launch the final...
How States Are Tackling the Opioid Crisis
ABSTRACT
Objectives:
We used data from the 2015 National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors Web-based questionnaire and other sources to demonstrate the range and scope of state initiatives being used to deal with the...
Opioid Use and Opioid Use Disorder in Pregnancy
ABSTRACT
Opioid use in pregnancy has escalated dramatically in recent years, paralleling the epidemic observed in the general population. To combat the opioid epidemic, all health care providers need to take an active role. Pregnancy...
Teachers and Coaches in Adolescent Social Networks Are Associated with Healthier Self-Concept and Decreased Substance Use
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND
Poor academic (eg. “I am a bad student”) and behavioral (eg. “I am a troublemaker”) self-concepts are strongly linked to adolescent substance use. Social networks likely influence self-concept. However, little is...