As another year comes to a close, we wanted to share just a few highlights from 2015.
• CBAM formed a new collaboration with the University of Cape Town through a NIDA-funded study linking findings from neuroscience with clinical outcomes using contingency management to identify changes in the brain structure and function of methamphetamine users that emerge during purely behavioral therapy.
• Our Executive Director, Dr. Steven Shoptaw, gave a well-received talk on non-injection drug use and HIV at the annual conference of the HIV Prevention Trials Network. He also spoke at a local LGBTQ health conference and was featured in a video on the use of PrEP as HIV prevention.
• CBAM hosted two interns from NIDA’s summer research program for underrepresented students.
• LA County Board of Supervisors called for a robust and comprehensive program to deliver Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) throughout the county. Members of CBAM have been vocal in discussions about PrEP with the County Department of Public Health’s Division of HIV and STD Programs and the County Commission on HIV that helped influence this motion.
• CBAM staff and postdoctoral fellows took part in the 31st Annual Multi-Campus Family Medicine Research Day. Poster presentations were give on the socioeconomic and underlying medical issues that hindered eligibility for men in one of our clinical trials, on using behavioral economics to predict outcomes of medication and counseling for prescription opioid dependence, and on the effects of mental health, substance use and sexual orientation on HIV housing program outcomes.
• CBAM addiction specialists presented on the integration of addiction medicine into primary care and were quote in an article about new guidelines aimed at curbing the overuse of prescription medications.
• Members of CBAM co-authored more than two dozen peer-reviewed journal articles on topics ranging from clinical management of substance use among LGBT individuals to the effects of a particular medication on the subjective response to methamphetamine in a clinical sample to the relationship between social networks and HIV risk.
• CBAM was awarded new grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Mental Health, the University of California Office of the President, Family Health International and the Health Resources and Services Administration.
To learn more and to keep up with all that’s happening at CBAM, visit our blog at http://www.uclacbam.org/category/blog/