On this page you will find a collection of active addiction-related projects ongoing across Rutgers. Learn about on-going research projects and datasets available for analysis. Contact information for each project listed below is provided.

If you are interested in hosting your project on this page, please email rarc@bhi.rutgers.edu with your project details.

  • Project SNATCHED: Study of Social Networks and Neighborhoods Through Technology Centered Health Equity Research Embracing Diversity in Newark

    Despite high HIV incidence, disproportionate mental health burdens, and severe consequences from substance use among Black men who have sex with men (MSM), few studies have applied real-time, tech-enabled data collection methods to examine these issues through a networked and spatial lens. The proposed pilot study will leverage innovative data collection methodologies, including global positioning systems (GPS) mobility tracking and ecological momentary assessments (EMA), to generate real-time, high-resolution insights into population mobility patterns and their implications for HIV, mental health, and substance use-related health outcomes. We are recruiting 140 participants for this pilot study.

    Research Recruting: Implementation science determinants and needed mechanisms for PrEP delivery among people who use drugs: We are recruiting 20 healthcare workers for in-depth interviews who provide HIV prevention services, with a focus on pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), to people who use drugs. Participants must be over the age of 18 years. Incentive is a $40 Amazon gift card.

    Project SNATCHED: We are recruiting 140 Black men who have sex with men who live in Newark and the greater NYC area for this project.Participants must be over the age of 18 years. Participants will complete a 1-2 hour baseline assessment, take daily surveys (5-10 mins) for up to 2 weeks, and download an application which provides mobility data for two weeks. Incentive is up to $100 in Amazon gift cards.

    If you have questions about this study, please email chohee.shrader@rutgers.edu

  • The impact of HB-139 on substance use outcomes: a natural experiment (R01-NIDA)

    This study will generate causal evidence of the impacts of legislation (House Bill 139; HB-139) eliminating court fees in New Mexico in 2024. Utilizing the policy as a natural experiment, we will compare drug court engagement and state-wide overdose mortality between New Mexico and a synthetic control group to isolate the impacts of removing court fees and surcharges on these outcomes. Through Aim 1, we will conduct scientific legal mapping to characterize state-level court fee policies nationally (1a), generating a sampling frame to identify plausible counterfactual settings against which to compare overdose deaths in New Mexico before (2022-2024) and (2024-2026) after the passage of HB-139. We will then generate a synthetic control state using data from that sampling frame and conduct controlled interrupted time series analyses to estimate the specific impact of the policy intervention on overdose mortality in New Mexico, using CDC fatal overdose data (1b). Through Aim 2, we will utilize data from New Mexico’s unified court system and conduct interrupted time series analysis measuring the impact of this legislation on court debt, drug court enrollment and completion and recidivism among people in the New Mexico criminal justice system (2022-2026). Through Aim 3, we will conduct qualitative in-depth interviews with stakeholders across New Mexico’s policy and criminal justice systems who were involved in developing, passing, and implementing this legislation (N=20, Group 1), and intended policy beneficiaries, i.e., individuals.

    To inquire about this project, please email Zoe Lindenfeld, Zoe.Lindenfeld@Rutgers.edu

  • Smoking-related differences in learning and cardiovascular activity among adults who do and do not smoke cigarettes

    This between-subjects experimental design is looking at differences in learning between individuals who do and do not smoke combustible cigarettes, and how these differences relate to other aspects of anxiety and cardiovascular health.

    To inquire about this project, please email Hannah Brinkman, hannah.brinkman@rutgers.edu

  • Understanding research attitudes around multimodal data collection among people who use drugs

    Substance use disorders (SUDs) are chronic conditions that are characterized by heterogeneity in both clinical presentation and response to treatment. To effectively develop SUD treatments, we must first understand how individual differences across a variety of domains (e.g., neural, genetic, environmental, and social factors) contribute to the etiology, development, and trajectories of SUD from adolescence to adulthood. Furthermore, this work must be conducted by engaging people who use alcohol and drugs and parents of youth as they initiate alcohol and substance use in the research process itself. However, to date, there is minimal involvement of the lived experiences of people who use alcohol and drugs into research design and assessments. The proposed pilot study will provide direct and actionable information through identifying unique barriers and motivators as well as ways in which research teams might modify their recruitment processes and work to build trust among people who use alcohol and drugs.

    We are recruiting 400 adults who have used alcohol or drugs in the past three months for this pilot study. Participants will be asked to answer an online survey that will take approximately 30 minutes to complete and will be compensated with a $10 Visa gift card for their time.

    Interested in participating in this research study? Please visit https://redcap.link/RUResearchVoices

    Questions about this study? Please email researchvoices@ubhc.rutgers.edu, researchvoices@ubhc.rutgers.edu

  • Recruiting participants for the Personalizing Treatment Delivery study

    Struggling with anxiety or stress? Drinking regularly and want to make a change? Join the PTD study!

    What to Expect:
    -Complete short smartphone surveys (up to 14 weeks)
    -Complete 2 assessment meetings (receive $30 e-gift card/meeting)
    -Receive 11 no-cost Zoom (or in-person) counseling sessions

    Ready to Take the Next Step?
    Click the link to take our short screening survey:  https://redcap.link/personalizingtreatmentdelivery

    If you have questions about this study, please email ptd.study@rwjms.rutgers.edu

  • Smartphone sensors to detect shifts toward healthy behavior during alcohol treatment

    This secondary data analysis project will use the unique combination of already collected phone sensor data (e.g., activity level, travel pattern, communication pattern from call logs) in the context of an alcohol text message intervention clinical trial to gain new insight into when and how young adults’ routines change in response to a digital alcohol intervention. Phone sensor data provide objective markers of daily routines, which can reveal with low burden, shifts toward alternative behaviors associated with positive response to alcohol treatment. Results will inform personalized interventions based on phone sensor data (e.g., GPS, accelerometer) to optimize digital intervention effects.

     

    To inquire about this project, please email Dr. Tammy Chung, tammy.chung@rutgers.edu

  • Smartphone app to examine effects of cannabis use on driving behavior

    This exploratory study, done in collaboration with the Departments of Psychiatry and Computer and Electrical Engineering (Professor Yingying Chen) at Rutgers, combines smartphone monitoring of driving behavior with daily data collection (self-report, saliva sample) to examine effects of cannabis on driving behavior in real-world conditions among medical cannabis patients. The project focuses on medical cannabis patients due, in part, to greater access to information on cannabis content based on product labeling (THC, CBD). Study results have important public health implications for guiding efforts to prevent driving under the influence of cannabis.

     

    To inquire about this project, please email Dr. Tammy Chung, tammy.chung@rutgers.edu

  • A genetically informative approach to understanding the impact of spousal psychiatric disorders on alcohol use disorder onset, remission, and relapse

    Our objective in this project is to delineate the impact of a spouse’s substance use and psychiatric disorders on their partner’s alcohol use disorder (AUD) onset, remission, and relapse during marriage within a genetically informative framework. To date, efforts to understand spousal influences on alcohol outcomes have largely focused on alcohol-specific contagion models, whereby alcohol use behaviors in one partner are socially transmitted to the other. Yet, this prior focus alcohol-specific contagion is restrictive in view of epidemiological evidence that spouses of AUD-affected individuals also tend to suffer from other common disorders, including major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, other drug abuse/dependence, ADHD, and antisocial personality disorder.

    We build on these epidemiological findings to clarify the nature of the associations between these other forms of spousal substance use and psychiatric disorders and key alcohol outcomes including AUD onset, remission, and relapse. We do this within a genetically informative framework that also recognizes the potential contributions of a spouse’s genetic propensity for a disorder even in the absence of a diagnosis (i.e., social genetic effects), as well as how the focal individual’s genotype may differentially sensitize him/her to a spouse’s disorder (i.e., gene-environment interaction effects).

    Relevant phenotypic and genotypic data for this secondary data analysis project come from spousal dyads (N = 1,688 dyads) collected as part of the NIAAA-funded Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA). Our specific aims are to: (1) Delineate the temporal dynamics underlying associations between spousal substance use and psychiatric disorder diagnoses (inclusive of cannabis use disorder, other psychoactive drug use disorder, antisocial personal disorder, ADHD, nicotine dependence, major depressive disorder, and PTSD) and their partner’s AUD onset, remission, and relapse; (2) Identify whether a spouse’s genetic propensity for psychiatric disorders (above and beyond a diagnosis itself) is associated with their partner’s AUD onset, remission, and relapse; (3) Examine whether the focal individual’s genetic predisposition for alcohol problems predicts variability in their sensitivity to spousal substance use and psychiatric disorders; and (4) Evaluate whether the expected effects differ as a function of sex and parenthood.

    The results may have theoretical implications for expanding social stress models of AUD to include spousal substance use and psychiatric disorders, and in turn this knowledge is anticipated to have implications for couples and family systems-based preventive interventions for AUD. More broadly, this work will contribute to the collaborative research team’s long-term goal to elucidate how genetic factors and close relationship factors come together to influence the onset, persistence, and discontinuity of AUD.

    To inquire about this project, email Dr. Jessica Salvatore, jessica.salvatore@rutgers.edu.

  • Identifying transdiagnostic versus specific genetic, environmental, and neural risk factors for addictive disorders

    Addictive disorders are highly comorbid, due, in part, to shared genetic liability as well as common dysfunction across neural systems (e.g., inhibitory control) that also influence other externalizing behaviors. Historically, etiologic research on addictive disorders excluded participants with comorbid disorders and instead studied individuals that met criteria for only one disorder of interest. Given the comorbidity among addictive disorders, this approach has decreased the generalizability of findings and limited our ability to understand the etiology of addictive disorders as they occur in the real world. The current study will begin to address this limitation by collecting data from a clinically diverse group of adults and mapping genetic, neural, and environmental risk factors onto shared and unique variance among addictive disorders while also examining associations with treatment outcomes.This will be accomplished by examining associations among transdiagnostic addiction and disorder specific factors and 1) genetic liability, 2) environmental risk factors, 3) treatment outcomes, and 4) neural indices of inhibitory control, reward responsivity, and emotion processing.

    To inquire about this project, please email Dr. Sarah Brislin, sarah.brislin@rutgers.edu, Dr. David Zald, david.zald@rutgers.edu, and Dr. Lia Nower, lnower@rutgers.edu

  • Determining the neurobiological predictors of Multisystemic Therapy outcomes in justice-involved youth

    Youth who engage in problem behavior (violence, delinquency, and substance abuse) exact a costly social and economic toll on their families, peers, and communities. Despite being a leading cause of treatment referral, empirically-supported behavioral interventions for these problem behaviors are both time and resource intensive, typically requiring involvement of not only a therapist, but also caregivers, school personnel, and other community agents such as probation officers and youth program staff. Translational research can improve treatment outcomes as well as increase its potency and efficiency, decreasing the treatment burden on therapists and patients. In this pilot study, we propose to bridge insights from behavioral genetics and neuroscience with existing empirically supported treatments. Using biological data to define dysfunction may allow for meaningful subgroups to be defined, identifying premorbid dysfunction, and anchoring assessment and treatment to biologically-based systems.

    To inquire about this project, please email Dr. Sarah Brislin, sarah.brislin@rutgers.edu

  • A Puff Topography Biofeedback Paradigm to Reduce Stress-Precipitated Smoking Reinforcement

    This project involves an experimental design to evaluate the acute effects of a novel puff topography biofeedback paradigm informed by autonomic psychophysiology to attenuate stress-precipitated smoking reinforcement in emotionally vulnerable smokers.

    To inquire about this project, please email Dr. Teresa Leyro, teresa.leyro@rutgers.edu and Dr. Samantha Farris, samantha.farris@rutgers.edu.

  • DNA Discovery: Learn About Your Risk for Addiction

    Are you interested in knowing your risk for addiction – including problems with alcohol, cannabis, nicotine, other drugs, gambling, gaming, social media, and more?

    The Rutgers Addiction Research Center, directed by Principal Investigator, Dr. Danielle Dick, PhD, is currently recruiting participants ages 18-25, for a research study to evaluate a newly developed online platform that provides individuals with personalized risk profiles that combine genetic, behavioral, and environmental information.

    Participants will receive their personalized risk profile for FREE as well as up to $40 in compensation for completing research surveys to help the study team evaluate the program.

    To inquire about this project, visit addiction.rutgers.edu/addictionrisk