The aim of our program is to train post-doctoral biomedical, behavioral, health care and other public health scientists to conduct research on treatment and early interventions for alcohol abuse and alcoholism. An overarching goal is to enhance the scientific reasoning skills needed to advance treatment research in alcohol abuse. From our perspective such research will benefit from interventions guided by sophisticated and fully developed theory using a multidisciplinary framework that includes the biological, psychological, social and cultural context in which interventions occur. While other institutional training programs may address treatment/early intervention research, this is the primary mission for this program. Distinctive features of our training program are: that it is interdisciplinary; tat it embraces no single ideology or theory concerning the nature of dysfunctions related to alcohol or drug abuse; that it provides training in early intervention and treatment along a continuum; and that it provides trainees with highly individualized opportunities to develop competitive grant applications and by doing so, contribute new knowledge to the base of alcohol-related dysfunction and treatment. The training experience is structured to provide individualized research experience and training, complemented by a common academic curriculum to which fellows' allocated 20% of their training time. Four distinct areas are covered in the curriculum: (1) statistics/research methodology; (2) grantsmanship; (3) ethical issues in research; and (4) a two-year sequence of formal courses covering the etiology and treatment of hazardous drinking and alcohol use disorders from varying disciplinary perspectives. We also subscribe to a research apprenticeship model under the guidance of the research mentor. The fellow's individual research training experience emerges from an individualized development plan (IDP) developed by the fellow and agreed to by his/her mentors, and reviewed and approved by the Training Committee. The program has a primary emphasis on training in innovative treatment development and clinical trials with a secondary emphasis on the translation of clinical efficacy research into services, effectiveness, and cost- effectiveness research. Our didactic and research experiences in neurobiology and neuroimaging, behavioral genetics, and alcohol administration have expanded our focus of translational research from basic to clinical research. The expected training program duration is two years but on occasion we extend this training period to three years. We offer 3rd years for fellows with less extensive training in research methods; fellows who are cross-training, e.g. adding HIV/AIDS training to a primary background in alcohol research; or for fellows in each cohort who need more time to accomplish their goals of becoming independent investigators. The program has been accepting on average 3 to 4 new fellows per year. At any given time there are likely to be 9 to 10 fellows in residence. However, in order to comply with the $500K budget cap, we are requesting funding for a total of 8 fellows at this time. This is a reduction from the 10 of previous segments of this Training Program.
This training program is designed to address the significant and costly public health problem of alcohol use disorders by training postdoctoral biomedical, biobehavioral, health care, and other public health scientists to conduct alcohol intervention research. Our program draws on many scientific disciplines, including biological sciences, epidemiology and etiology, prevention, clinical, and public health research, and emphasizes multidisciplinary approaches to achieving innovations in alcohol research. Cutting-edge training of the next generation of alcohol researchers has the potential to accelerate the pace of science in developing effective alcohol treatments.
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