Addiction Audio

In this episode, Dr Katherine East talks about her recent article on heated tobacco product use. When conducting this research, Katie talked to former and current smokers who use IQOS to understand the words they use to describe themselves and what they do in relation to heated tobacco products. Katie and Rob then talk about how the language can reflect identity and how this can influence the risk...

In this episode, Harry Tattan-Birch talks about his recent article on the increased popularity of disposable vaping products. He discusses the difference between this new generation of vaping products compared with the original versions. He talks about the data that suggest a rise in vaping alongside a lack of change in use of nicotine products overall. And the three reasons why disposable vapes h...

In this episode of Addiction Audio, Rob Talks to Dr Ashley Gearhardt from the University of Michigan about whether highly processed foods can be considered to be addictive substances. Dr Gearhardt starts by defining highly processed foods before covering the issues that arise from having an addictive substance (such as food) that you can’t ‘opt out’ of. Ashley makes comparisons with other addictiv...

In this episode of Addiction Audio, Rob talks to Ebtesam Saleh a Doctoral student at the Charite university in Berlin. Ebtesam talks about her recent systematic review of qualitative research on substance use among refugees. She talks about talks about the limitations of using survey data to explore this issue and how qualitative research can help contextualise the problems faced by refugees in a...

In this episode of Addiction Audio, Drs Mignonne Guy and Megan Piper talk about their work on the racial equity taskforce for the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT). It was a powerful and wide-ranging discussion about developing anti-racist practice, social constructs of race, research methods, society organisations and research funding structures. Megan and Mignonne began by talk...

In this episode we talk to Dr Sharon Cox about developing an ontology around nicotine and tobacco products. Sharon also talks about the importance of ontologies and how they are important for research. She talks about how to manage disagreements when developing a system that categorises and defines products, behaviours and properties.   “So, as researchers, which we are, we should be pedants...

In this episode, Professor Matt Hickman talks about using population modelling to identify the population implications of Opioid Agonist Treatment (OAT). He covers the impact that OAT has on drug-related deaths and other causes of mortality as well as how models can be used to explore what mortality rates would have been without OAT in New South Wales, Australia. Professor Hickman talks about thei...

In this episode Dr Alexander Denissoff talks about his recent research into the potential associations between cannabis use and later life bipolar disorder. He discusses the basis for hypotheses that link cannabis and bipolar disorder, outlining what the Northern Finland Birth Cohort is and how it was used in this study. “It’s an ongoing birth cohort which included 99% of all live births in the tw...

In this episode, Tori Horn from the University of Memphis talks about her recent systematic review of risk-taking and gambling whilst drinking. Tori talks about the moderators between alcohol and risk-taking and how her and her colleagues screened 30,000 papers to examine the influence of blood alcohol concentration, gender, the type of gambling and other factors as potential moderators of this re...

In this episode of the Addiction Audio podcast, Dr Paolo Deluca talks about his recent research on using brief interventions in emergency departments. The research involved a three-armed randomised controlled trial on brief interventions for young people, and found no significant differences in alcohol-related outcomes between young people who had been given a brief intervention and those who had...

In this episode of Addiction Audio, Nazlee Maghsoudi talks about her recent publication “Drug checking services for people who use drugs: a systematic review”. Nazlee discusses how drug checking services change behaviour, contribute to drug market monitoring and otherwise impact the risk associated with using substances. She talks about the three waves of drug checking services from the late 1960s...

Dr Iain Hardie talks to Addiction Audio about his research into alcohol use changes during lockdown. His research is the first to report longitudinal data on changes in drinking quantities and characteristics. Dr Hardie talks about using an interrupted time series analysis to identify the impact of the pandemic on drinking habits. “A lot of [drinking] occasions in general that start earlier in the...

In this episode of Addiction Audio, Professor John Marsden talks about the role of pre-registration in increasing research transparency. He addresses the anxieties that people can have about pre-registration and talks about how it’s really not that difficult or daunting. Professor Marsden talks gets into the detail of pre-registration; when to register, how to register and the importance of planni...

Dr Elis Haan talks to Dr Rob Calder about ADHD and maternal substance use. She discusses her recent paper which explored the impact of smoking, alcohol and drugs during pregnancy on ADHD outcomes in young people. Elis talks about the differences between maternal and teacher ratings of ADHD. She also explains negative control and polygenic risk score methods used in this study discussing how multip...

Rob Calder talks to Dr Olga Perski about her recent research on just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAIs) whereby smartphones are used to help prevent lapses among people who are trying to quit or reduce alcohol, tobacco or other drug use. Dr Perski talks about why the literature is so complex and how defining JITAIs is difficult in the first place. She talks about the potential for Ecological...

Rob Calder talks to Professor John Marsden about cocaine cravings. Professor Marsden discusses the lack of pharmacological treatments for cocaine, and about his recent study using mental imagery to address cocaine cravings. He talks about the benefits of positive imagery compared with negative imagery. He then discusses how useful mixed-methods research can be and the importance of writing up data...

Professor Alison Ritter talks about her recent paper “Are market mechanisms associated with alcohol and other drug treatment outcomes” and about the Australian context of drug treatment provision and commissioning. We discuss the challenges of measuring outcomes against commissioning structures and Professor Ritter explains how funding arrangements can end up looking like a bowl of spaghetti. Alis...

Rob Calder talks to Professor Robert West about the Paper Authoring Tool (PAT). Professor West talks about how PAT can be used in the design and write-up phases of a randomised controlled trials, about how it saves time for reviewers and journals and about how using the PAT can make your research more rigorous, well reported and discoverable. He also discusses the future of research publishing and...

Jack Wilson talks to Rob Calder about his recent systematic review and meta-analysis on whether cannabis use increases the likelihood of later life opioid use or opioid use disorders. Jack talks about the limitations of the literature, the influence that the gateway hypothesis has had on policy and on some of the different types of studies that explore this issue. Wilson J, Mills K, Freeman TP, Su...

Dr Emma Johnson talks to Rob Calder about shared genetic liabilities for cannabis use disorder and schizophrenia and the role of tobacco smoking. Dr Johnson talks about the implications of this research on the evidence for a causal relationship between cannabis and schizophrenia and for other genetic associations relating to substance use and psychiatric disorders. The episode also covers to ever-...

Rob Calder talks to Dr Thomas Mason about his research on pay for performance models of addiction treatment and how they were associated with increased emergency hospital admissions. Mason T, Whittaker W, Jones A, Sutton M. Did paying drugs misuse treatment providers for outcomes lead to unintended consequences for hospital admissions? Difference-in-differences analysis of a pay-for-performance sc...

Rob Calder talks to Dr Máirtín McDermott and Dr Leonie Brose about their research into the effectiveness of e-cigarettes for quitting smoking. McDermott M.S, East K.A, Brose L.S, McNeill A, Hitchman S.C, Partos T.R. The effectiveness of using e‐cigarettes for quitting smoking compared to other cessation methods among adults in the United Kingdom. Addiction 2021. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.15...

Rob Calder talks to Dr Maristela Monteiro about deaths in the Americas between 2013 and 2015 that were 100% attributable to alcohol. Chrystoja B.R, Monteiro M.G, Owe G, Pinheiro Gawryszewski V, Rehm J, Shield K. Mortality in the Americas from 2013 to 2015 resulting from diseases, conditions and injuries which are 100% alcohol attributable. Addiction 2021  https://doi.org/10.1111/add.15475 Hos...

Rob Calder speaks to Dr Katie East about her research into social norms in relation to smoking behaviour East K, McNeill A, Thrasher JF, Hitchman SC. Social norms as a predictor of smoking uptake among youth: a systematic review, meta‐analysis and meta‐regression of prospective cohort studies. Addiction 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/add.15427 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informat...

Rob Calder speaks to Professor Jon Caulkins about his Addiction Opinion & Debate article discussing the difficulties of measuring heroin use with general population surveys Reuter P, Caulkins JP, Midgette G. Heroin Use Cannot Be Measured Adequately with a General Population Survey. Addiction 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/add.15458 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.