Accessibility statement

Improving understanding of, and responses to, addiction

Researchers within this theme seek to generate rigorous evidence on addictive behaviours (alcohol, drugs, tobacco and gambling) as public health and health inequalities issues, and to develop and evaluate individual and multi-level interventions. A focus on better understanding the nature of the problems, and informing evidence-based responses, is complemented by investigations of relevant public health policy making processes, including subversion of evidence-informed policies and science by vested interests.

This research will be useful for developing more effective services to help prevent and deal with alcohol and other addiction problems, and also for public health policy making. Researchers also seek to promote the use of evidence in policy so that, for example, alcohol policies are less influenced by corporations. A longer term aim is to enhance public understanding of the nature of addictive behaviour and public health problems. 

Projects

Novel Psychoactive Substances in the UK

There are wide-ranging grounds for concern about novel psychoactive substance (NPS) use. (i.e. the use of psychoactive drugs which are not prohibited by the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs or by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971). The overall aim of this project is to inform the development of public health intervention research on NPS through systematically reviewing existing data on their use in the UK, the associated problems and the potential responses.

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The PREMIUM trial: examining the effectiveness of lay counsellor-delivered psychological treatment for harmful drinking in primary care in India

PREMIUM has developed a set of methods for adapting evidence from high income countries to meet the needs for research in low and middle income country settings.

Link to project.

The AMADEUS (Alcohol e-Mail Assessment and feedback study Dismantling Effectiveness for University Students) Research and Development programme

The AMADEUS (Alcohol e-Mail Assessment and feedback study Dismantling Effectiveness for University Students) Research and Development programme aims to evaluate and develop the national system for online alcohol intervention used in routine practice among the student healthcare centres in Sweden. The programme consists of a series of large pragmatic RCTs

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The Transformative Research on the Alcohol industry, Policy and Science (TRAPS) research programme

TRAPS is funded by the Wellcome Trust and the University of York to investigate the alcohol industry, public health sciences and policy. The overarching aims of TRAPS are to develop understanding of how the alcohol industry influences science, the science/policy interface, and policy making, and to develop research capacity to investigate alcohol industry actors and their engagements with public health sciences and policy.  

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Community pharmacy: Highlighting Alcohol use in Medication aPpointments (CHAMP-1)

CHAMP-1 is a National Institute for Health Research funded five year research programme to design and evaluate in a definitive RCT, an intervention that helps incorporate discussion of alcohol within medication consultations.

Link to project