November 2008

National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) Awards Funding to Create More Interdisciplinary Integration Among Areas of Drug Addiction and Alcohol and Mental Health Services Research

Junius Gonzales, MD, MBAJunius Gonzales, MD, MBA, Dean of the USF College of Behavioral & Community Sciences has been awarded a three-year $288,648 health services research conference grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA). Funds will be used to establish a series of three scientific meetings that will better align the often separate areas of drug addiction and alcohol and mental health (MH) services research into a more integrative behavioral health services research (BHSR) platform.

Given the tremendous disease burdens associated with drug abuse, problem alcohol and mental health conditions, and the impact of these conditions on other general medical disorders, the grant co-funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) seeks to better align researchers from the different areas to work together on common problems.

"Mainstreaming behavioral health services research into general health services research is critical," noted Dr. Gonzales. "Currently there is no one place for all groups to meet exclusively and at one time on this topic. No professional group or association for the interdisciplinary area of BHSR exists. Hence this scientific research conference series seeks to leverage economies of scale, scope, learning and thinking by bringing people from the different areas together to address a shared and common problem."

The conference grant proposes to:

  1. develop a collaborative, strategic, integrated interdisciplinary research agenda to improve behavioral health services delivery to all people who suffer from these problems;
  2. engage and partner researchers and other key stakeholders such as afflicted individuals, families, providers, policy decision makers and communities to contribute to this agenda; and
  3. develop ‘new’ research teams comprised of people from the different arenas who have not worked together previously.

The use of a ‘virtual collaboratory’ will assist in this effort to move each conference beyond a single, discrete event to a dynamic and continuous platform for research production and knowledge transfer.

The first conference ‘Integrating Services, Integrating Research for Co-Occurring Conditions: A Need for New Views and Action’ will be held in March 2009 (http://bhsr.fmhi.usf.edu/) and a call for abstracts is out. The second and third year conferences will focus respectively on the themes of quality of care and disparities.

The Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute (FMHI) within the College of Behavioral & Community Sciences at the University of South Florida is a national leader in behavioral health research. The Institute houses several state and national research and training centers focused on improving practices in treating mental, addictive, and developmental disorders.