The efficacy of stabilization, acute
treatment (psychosocial and
pharmaceutical interventions) and
disease management for addiction
involving all substances; and The effectiveness of these approaches in
various real-world settings, including
among people of different ages,
races/ethnicities, in the justice
population and among other special
populations. Determine best practices in addiction care
and how best to move evidence-based
interventions into practice.
Evaluate the effectiveness of current and
newly-developed interventions and
treatments against models of best practice,
as well as the effectiveness of various types
of support services as adjuncts to clinical
treatment.
Better understand the shared genetic,
biological and environmental mechanisms
underlying different manifestations of
addiction.
Develop the technological infrastructure
(including electronic health records)
necessary to collect and disseminate
performance and outcomes measures for
research and evaluation.
Develop practice support tools such as those
for electronic screening and brief
intervention (e.g., via the Internet, smart
phones and other electronic devices), based
on findings from implementation research,
that facilitate integration of addiction care
into medical practice.
Provide incentives to the pharmaceutical
industry to develop and market new and
effective pharmaceutical interventions for
addiction treatment.
Collect data in areas that currently are
devoid of evidence, such as:
The screening and intervention services
gap--data collected on a unified sample
regarding both the prevalence of risky
substance use and the prevalence of
receipt of specific screening and
intervention services. Treatment of addiction involving
nicotine alone and in combination with
other substances and behaviors--
prevalence, types of treatments,
expenditures and outcomes. Find a cure for the disease of addiction.Implement the National Institutes of
Health’s (NIH) Recommendation to Create
a Single Institute Addressing Substance
Use and Addiction
Create a unified national institute focused on
substance use and addiction, recognizing the
overarching disease of addiction rather than
continuing the focus on different manifestations
of substance use and the disease--tobacco,
alcohol, other drug use--and including the risky
use of all addictive substances. Include in the
research portfolio addiction involving behaviors
other than substance use, and focus on the
causes, correlates, consequences, interventions,
policies and possible cures for all manifestations
of the disease. The portfolio of the institute also
should include health conditions resulting from
risky use and addiction (such as birth defects,
cardiac complications, Hepatitis C, substance-
related HIV-AIDS) and other conditions which
increase the risk of developing addiction (such
as post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain
injury and other mental health disorders).