Drug dependence continues to be a persistent problem for which new treatments, both behavioral and pharmacological, are continually being developed. There is a great need to develop mechanisms by which such treatments, once shown to be efficacious, can be put into widespread clinical practice in community-based treatment programs where the largest number of drug abusers are seen. A number of barriers between researchers and clinicians, however, have made such a transition difficult, if at all possible. The recent Institute of Medicine report has challenged us to work on """"""""bridging the gap,"""""""" to address the barriers to facilitate a more functional working relationship between treatment providers and clinical researchers, who share a common goal of wanting to improve substance abuse treatment and its outcomes. NIDA has developed an action agenda to stimulate treatment providers and researchers to consider ways, from each of their perspectives, to narrow or bridge the """"""""gap."""""""" NIDA's action agenda is the development of the National Clinical Trials Network (CTN), in which researchers at Regional Research and Training Centers work in partnership with Community-based Treatment Programs both to develop areas of mutual interest for future clinical research and to test promising therapies in community settings. The present proposal seeks support to develop the Pacific Northwest (PNW) Regional Research and Training Center of the NIDA-funded Clinical Trials Network. The interdisciplinary Regional Research and Training Center, to be housed within the University of Washington Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute (ADAI), will have as its primary focus the development, implementation, and evaluation of behavioral and pharmacological therapies, alone and in combination, targeted at drug use as delivered in the real world settings of the affiliated community-based treatment programs. It will integrate behavioral and pharmacological research as a means of informing policy, therapy development, and the evaluation process, with a goal of contributing meaningfully to the improved effectiveness of new and promising therapies developed within the larger Clinical Trials Network. The investigators have a long history of working with community based programs in research and program evaluation, collaborating on multisite clinical trials, developing and evaluating both pharmacotherapy and behavioral therapy, and conducting services research, and translating and disseminating results into information useful for clinicians and policy makers. It is this experience that we offer to the larger Clinical Trials Network.
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