Prevention

Study Endorses Onsite HIV Testing Without Risk Reduction Counseling

Results from NIDA’s Clinical Trials Network (CTN) affirm Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendation that health care facilities serving high-risk populations offer onsite HIV testing. Patients who were offered testing in the centers where they received treatment for substance abuse were four times as likely to be tested as patients who were referred offsite. HIV Rapid Testing and Risk-Reduction Counseling Outcomes Patients were more likely to take a rapid HIV test when substance abuse treatment programs offered the test onsite rather than referred for offsite testing

Thoughts of Suicide May Persist Among Nonmedical Prescription Opiate Users

People who use prescription opiates other than as ordered by a doctor are more likely to consider suicide than those who use these medications only appropriately or not at all. A recent NIDA-supported study also disclosed that the risk for suicidal thoughts remains elevated after cessation of use. The researchers suggest that both present and former users of nonprescribed opiates be monitored accordingly. Dr. Janet Kuramoto and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, found that 15 percent of 37,933 adult respondents to the 2009 National Survey

SAAF‒T Reduces African American Teens’ Substance Use, Conduct Problems

NIDA-supported researchers have developed a family-centered prevention program for adolescents and successfully tested it in a rural African American population. Youths who participated in the intervention at age 16 reported fewer conduct problems and depressive symptoms and less substance abuse at age 17‒18, compared to peers exposed to a control intervention ( see figure below). Dr. Gene Brody and colleagues at the Center for Family Research (CFR), University of Georgia, created Strong African American Families ‒Teen (SAAF ‒T) to address a gap in the prevention tool chest: Few interventions

Prenatal Methamphetamine Exposure Linked With Problems

In the latest findings from an ongoing study of the effects of prenatal methamphetamine exposure on child development, primary caregivers reported more signs of increased emotionality, anxiety, and depression in exposed nonexposed children at ages 3 and 5 years. The caregivers also reported that at age 5, methamphetamine-exposed children were less able to sustain attention and more prone to act out aggressively or destructively than were nonexposed children. The NIDA-supported Infant Development, Environment, and Lifestyle (IDEAL) study has followed more than 200 children exposed to

Good Behavior Game Wins 2012 Mentor International Best Practice Award

The Mentor Foundation recently honored the Good Behavior Game, a prevention program for young children that was developed with NIDA support. The game utilizes children’s desire for rewards to engender positive peer pressure to reduce aggressive and disruptive behaviors in the classroom. Student teams win stickers or other small rewards for complying with rules for good behavior, such as sitting quietly and not talking out of turn. The game has been shown to prevent drug abuse and other problems in adolescence and young adulthood. From left, Dr. Sheppard Kellam, Her Majesty Queen Silvia of

Program Reduces Recidivism Among Men With Co-occurring Disorders

A modified therapeutic community program designed by NIDA-supported researchers helped male parolees with co-occurring substance abuse and mental health disorders adjust to living in their communities. In a prior study, men who had participated in the program while incarcerated were only half as likely as others who received standard prison care to be sentenced for a new offense during their first year out. Recently, the program proved similarly effective when administered after prison release. Nationwide more than 4 in 10 state prison inmates are dually diagnosed with substance abuse and

Home Visits by Nurses to Low-Income First-Time Mothers Yield Enduring Benefits

Home visits by nurses to low-income first-time mothers, starting during pregnancy and extending into the second year of their children’s lives, have a positive and long-lasting impact on families. The latest findings, by Dr. David Olds and colleagues at the University of Colorado- Denver, indicate that the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) program improves outcomes for mothers and children 10 years after its administration and saves the government money. The benefits of the program—now documented among three groups of low-income mothers and children—have led to the expansion of government funding

Desire to Smoke Subsides, But Cigarette Cues Retain Power

A study by Drs. Gillinder Bedi and Harriet de Wit of the University of Chicago and Drs. Kenzie Preston, David Epstein, and Stephen Heishman of the NIDA Intramural Research Program provided initial evidence that drug-dependent humans can experience “incubation” of cue-induced craving. The phenomenon— an increasing susceptibility to drug cues during the first months of abstinence—has been documented repeatedly in animals. The issue has important clinical implications, suggesting that cues may continue to act as a potent trigger for relapse well past the initial period of withdrawal. The 86

Vouchers Improve Mothers’ Smoking Abstinence and Newborns’ Weight

Voucher payments for not smoking during pregnancy help women to stop using tobacco and boost the growth of their infants, according to an analysis of data from three controlled trials by Dr. Stephen Higgins and colleagues at the University of Vermont. About 34 percent of 85 women who participated in voucher-based reinforcement therapy (VBRT) were abstinent, as verified by urine tests, during late pregnancy compared with 7 percent of 81 women in the comparison group, who earned vouchers for attending assessments regardless of quitting success. Intervention participants maintained an advantage 3

Peers Increase Teen Driving Risk via Heightened Reward Activity

New research on the adolescent brain provides support for laws, existing in some locales, that prohibit teen drivers from having peers as passengers. Drs. Laurence Steinberg and Jason Chein at Temple University in Philadelphia offered adolescents, young adults, and adults monetary rewards for “driving” around a computer-simulated track. In the simulation, traffic lights appearing at frequent intervals turned yellow as the cars approached, forcing risk-reward choices. The driver might save time by proceeding through, but doing so would risk a collision and cause more delay than stopping and

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