By Ann Nicholson
March 30, 2001
The George Warren Brown School of Social Work will officially launch its new Comorbidity and Addictions Center (CAC) at 8:30 a.m. Monday with a lecture and panel discussion in Brown Hall Lounge.
A first-of-its-kind center for addiction research, CAC is funded by a five-year, $1.9 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
Directed by Arlene R. Stiffman, Ph.D., professor of social work, CAC supports groundbreaking research on addiction interventions for underserved populations. The center is the first in the nation affiliated with a school of social work.
Jerry P. Flanzer, D.S.W., acting branch chief of services research for NIDA's Division of Epidemiology, Services and Prevention Research, will deliver a keynote address at 9:30 a.m. on "Social Work, the Rising New Player, Partner and Leader in the Field of Drug Abuse Research." A 10:15 a.m. panel will respond to Flanzer's presentation from the perspectives of an educator, a researcher and a practitioner. Serving on the panel are social work school alumna and researcher Renee Cunningham Williams, Ph.D.; Matthew O. Howard, Ph.D., CAC senior researcher and assistant professor of social work; and Oval Miller Sr., executive director of the Black Alcohol and Drug Service Information Center (BASIC) in St. Louis.
CAC is supporting a number of research projects, which may be expanded beyond the initial research. With the exception of two projects based in Arizona, the studies initially are being launched in the St. Louis area. The projects are:
¥ "The American Indian Multisector Help Inquiry." Headed by Stiffman and Eddie Brown, D.S.W., associate dean for community affairs and director of the social work school's Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies, the project focuses on mental-health and substance-abuse services for American Indian adolescents in Phoenix and Scottsdale, Ariz.
¥ "The COB Study: Cost, Outcomes, Burdens." Stiffman heads this Arizona project, which builds upon a previous NIDA study on the cost and role of nontraditional services for adolescent American Indians with addiction problems.
¥ "Toward a Natural History of Volatile Solvent Dependence." Howard is researching solvent abuse and dependence among drug-abusing populations.
¥ "Treatment Readiness Group for a Homeless Population With Comorbid Drug Abuse and Mental Illness." David Pollio, Ph.D., CAC associate director and associate professor of social work, is focusing on an intervention treatment program for homeless people with both mental health and substance-abuse problems.
¥ "Homeless Drug Abuse: Service Use, Needs, Costs and Consequences." Pollio is using a theoretical model that predicts relationships between service use, needs, costs and consequences for the drug-abusing homeless population. The project will study 400 adult homeless men and women in the St. Louis area over two years.
¥ "Substance Abuse, Comorbid Mental Health Problems and HIV Risk Behaviors Among Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Adolescents." Diane Elze, Ph.D., assistant professor of social work, is focusing on the risk and protective factors associated with drug-abuse and HIV behaviors among gay and lesbian adolescents.
¥ "Substance Abuse and Resiliency Among Battered Women." Tonya Edmond, Ph.D., assistant professor of social work, is studying substance abuse and resiliency among battered women and the role of psychiatric disorders in the treatment they receive.
¥ "Substance Abuse Prevention and Future Orientation Among Delinquent Youths." James Herbert Williams, Ph.D., assistant dean for academic affairs and associate professor of social work, is researching the link between substance abuse and delinquency.
¥ "Locating Family Strengths for Homeless Adults with Substance Abuse Disorders." Michael Polgar, Ph.D., research associate, is developing and testing unique family education groups to bring family strengths to the treatment of substance abuse and mental disorders among homeless people.
¥ "Spinal Cord-Injured Vocational Rehabilitation Clients with Substance Use Disorders." John Bricout, Ph.D., assistant professor of social work, will explore how a more positive adjustment to disability reduces the likelihood that individuals with a spinal cord injury will engage in substance abuse during the first six months following their trauma.
For further information on CAC, call 935-8386 or visit the center's Web site (http://gwbweb.wustl.edu/users/cac/).
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