The NIDA Drug Dependence Epidemiology Training Program is designed to increase the number and quality of expert scientists who identify drug dependence epidemiology as their major lifelong career, with a special focus on the application of advanced statistical methods to the design and analysis of epidemiologic study data and all forms of research dissemination. Now in its fourteenth year of competitively renewed support by NIDA, this proposal is for an additional five years of support. Pre-doctoral trainees earn the Ph.D. degree by completing required course work, research apprenticeships, field research, and examinations followed by the completion of thesis research and defense. Post-doctoral trainees complete an individualized program of research training, typically lasting two years, focusing on research collaboration with two-or-more program faculty to assemble a portfolio of first-authored, published scientific articles and career development plans. The research training plan retains educational and research-related elements from previously approved training plans, with refinements that reflect accumulating experience during the research training process. Recent developments include: (a) expansion of NIDA-funded core faculty specializing in drug dependence epidemiology;(b) a resulting increase in courses and research apprenticeship opportunities that focus on drug dependence epidemiology;(c) the addition of core faculty utilizing bench science methodologies;and (d) the implementation of new training initiatives to facilitate fellows'establishing a record of first-author publication during their training experience. We have also revitalized our commitment to recruit underrepresented minorities into the Training Program facilitated by faculty nationwide. Some challenges currently facing the drug dependence field are unique to our era such that advances in bench sciences are now providing the basis to integrate genetic laboratory methodologies within epidemiologic field studies. Other challenges are long-standing with a sustained need for well-designed studies to help identify the biological and environmental factors that predispose to drug dependence and to develop empirically supported approaches to drug prevention. The Training Program at Johns Hopkins University is well positioned to meet these challenges by fostering the development of expert scientists capable of applying advanced epidemiologic and biostatistical methodologies to the study of drug dependence.
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