This application is a request for a NIH Research Scientist Development Award, Level II RSDA-II) to extend work supported under the RSDA-I previously awarded to the applicant (DA00139). (The RSDA-I granted in 1989 was titled """"""""Innovative Statistical Approaches to Drug Abuse Data""""""""; this application for the RSDA-II is titled """"""""Drug Abuse: Epidemiology, Treatment Processes, and Outcomes."""""""") The RSDA-Il will continue to ensure financial stability and release time from the pursuit of funding for actual research work. The major focus for the applicant during this five-year award is continuation of her professional work examining drug use epidemiology and treatment interventions for problematic drug abuse. Examining the implications of research findings for treatment strategies and developing the necessary social policy changes to support the implementation of improved treatment strategies is of further interest. The applicant will continue her professional work applying innovative statistical methodologies to drug abuse data. To this end, three convergent lines of current research will be continued. The first examines drug use and treatment utilization among subjects recruited through hospital emergency rooms sexually transmitted disease clinics, and jails. The second project is to improve the efficacy and efficiency of matching drug users' treatment needs to services. The third involves examining and evaluating the process of treatment service delivery with a special focus on the roles and functions of drug treatment counselors. The applicant's supporting institution is a research unit, the Neuropsychiatric Institute (NPI), organized within the Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, UCLA. Affiliated with the NPI is the UCLA Drug Abuse Research Center, which has been conducting research in drug abuse epidemiology natural history of narcotics addiction, treatment evaluation, and social policy over the past 20 years. In this setting, the applicant will conduct the proposed research and will receive additional training in psychiatric aspects of drug abuse treatment and in the implementation of treatment services. Furthermore. the applicant's considerable psychosocial research knowledge and skills in drug abuse issues will contribute to the NPI's general program in drug abuse research by complementing the Institute's biobehavioral perspective. During the award period, the applicant also expects to grow professionally as Associate Director of the UCLA Drug Abuse Research Center. in addition to pursuing the aforementioned research. activities will include the career development of new investigators from various disciplines and the mentoring of graduate and undergraduate students in related fields.
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