Substance Abuse News and Research

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Idaho ‘pushing envelope’ with health insurance plan. Can it do that?

For the past year, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have led a charge to roll back the Affordable Care Act, signaling an openness to state changes.

30 Jan 2018

Death in the family: An uncle’s overdose spurs Medicaid official to change course

Andrey Ostrovsky's family did not discuss what killed his uncle. He was young, not quite two weeks past his 45th birthday, when he died, and he had lost touch with loved ones in his final months. Ostrovsky speculated he had committed suicide.

29 Jan 2018

Research highlights benefits from enhanced recovery after surgery program

Colorectal and bariatric surgery patients benefited from an enhanced recovery after surgery program, leaving the hospital sooner and requiring fewer opioids to control pain, according to new research presented at the American Society of Anesthesiologists PRACTICE MANAGEMENT 2018 meeting.

27 Jan 2018

New study to use social media for exploring blunt use among African-American young adults

The use of blunts--tobacco cigar shells filled with marijuana--has increased steadily since they first became popular in the 1990s, especially among young adults.

23 Jan 2018

Expert discusses how to identify, support individuals with drug or alcohol addiction in workplace

As businesses in the UK become more aware of the impact that alcohol and drugs have on safety and productivity in the workplace, many have implemented professional procedures for testing employees for both substances.

16 Jan 2018

An opioid remedy that works: Treat pain and addiction at the same time

Seven years ago, Robert Kerley, who makes his living as a truck driver, was loading drywall when a gust of wind knocked him off the trailer. Kerley fell 14 feet and hurt his back.

8 Jan 2018

Drug overdose deaths soar nationally but plateau in some Western states

The opioid crisis on the East Coast and in the Midwest has fueled a national surge in drug deaths, even as fatal overdoses have decreased or remained stable in parts of the West, new federal data show.

8 Jan 2018

RTI-led study seeks to improve retention rates, outcomes of patients in addiction treatment

From 2000 to 2015, more than a half million people died from drug overdoses. Many of these individuals tried to recover from their addiction by seeking treatment at specialty addiction programs.

5 Jan 2018

Pharmacists slow to dispense lifesaving overdose drug

Gale Dunham, a pharmacist in Calistoga, Calif., knows the devastation the opioid epidemic has wrought, and she is glad the anti-overdose drug naloxone is becoming more accessible.

3 Jan 2018

Short- and long-term ADHD medication users have lower risk of STIs, study finds

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increases the risk of subsequent sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among adolescent and young adult populations by about three times, reports a study published in the January 2018 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

3 Jan 2018

Medicaid expansions for low-income parents can lead to expanded use of prenatal care

The Medicaid expansions for low-income parents that took place in 34 states between 1996 and 2011 led to a 2.3 percent decrease in the uninsured rate among women who already had a child and became pregnant again, and a 7.9 percent decrease in the number of mothers who didn't have insurance while they were pregnant.

28 Dec 2017

Children who experience abuse, adversity more likely to develop cardiovascular diseases in adulthood

Children and teens who are abused, witness violence, are bullied or face other adversities are more likely to develop cardiovascular diseases in adulthood, according to a new scientific statement by the American Heart Association published in the Association's journal Circulation.

18 Dec 2017

Telemedicine for addiction treatment? Picture remains fuzzy

When President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency, it came with a regulatory change intended to make it easier for people to get care. The declaration allows for doctors to prescribe addiction medicine virtually, without ever seeing the patient in person.

14 Dec 2017

Butler Hospital launches international Alzheimer's disease prevention study

The Memory and Aging Program at Butler Hospital, a member of Care New England and a major teaching affiliate of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, enrolled one of the initial participants in an international Alzheimer's disease (AD) prevention study.

11 Dec 2017

Treating the new hep C generation on their turf

Once a week, Dr. Diana Sylvestre puts her medical expertise to use in a rickety old house frequented by drug users in this small Northern California city.

7 Dec 2017

Stopping opioid addiction at one key source: The hospital

It may not be rocket science, but a group of surgeons at the University of Michigan's Michigan Medicine have devised a strategy to curb the nation's opioid epidemic — starting at their own hospital.

6 Dec 2017

Parental attention can be protective factor to lower risk of drug abuse among adolescents

Parents who require children to follow rules and keep a constant eye on their activities, endeavoring to know where they are, who they are with and what they are doing, run less risk of facing problems when their children enter adolescence, such as abuse of alcohol and other drugs.

4 Dec 2017

Desperate for coverage: Are short-term plans better than none at all?

When one of Cindy Holtzman's clients told the Woodstock, Ga., broker he was considering dropping his Affordable Care Act plan because next year's cost approached $23,000 for his family of four, she suggested a new option: a back-to-back set of four, 90-day short-term plans, which would effectively give them a modicum of medical coverage for 2018.

1 Dec 2017

Review: Relationship among key determinants affecting mental health disorders of GMS people

ASEAN integration is likely to bring about a substantial change to this area in the new era; it can subsequently cause many problems as well.

30 Nov 2017

Review: Program produces positive results for offenders with mental health or addiction issues

A review of a state program launched two years ago to improve recovery and reduce recidivism among felony offenders who have mental health or addiction issues shows the program is producing positive results.