Volume 46 Issue 2, April 2025

SAj Editorial Scholar Program

In January, the SAj Editorial Team announced the SAj Editorial Scholar Program, a program designed to engage early career clinical or health services scholars with SAj’s editorial team to learn about editorial decision-making and enhance skills in scientific communication. After reviewing a strong slate of qualified applicants, the SAj Editorial Team is pleased to announce the 2025 SAj Editorial Scholars, Rebekah Halmo, PhD, MSW, LCSW and Evans Kyei, PhD, MSN, RN.

Editorial Efficiency Metrics

Our volume of manuscripts be considered for the journal continue to be robust with over 341 articles considered for publication in the last 12 months and over 52 articles under current review. Average time from submission to first decision at 45 days and average time from submission to final decision is 55 days. Over 188 original research articles have been decided on in the last 12 months.

For more updates, please follow SAj on Bluesky, X, and LinkedIn. Click here to sign up for SAj Table of Contents alerts.

Adam J. Gordon, MD MPH FASAM DFASAM, Editor-in-Chief, SAj                                       April 2025

Substance Use & Addiction Journal (SAj) embarked on it 46^th year of publication with publication of Volume 46, Issue 1 in January 2025. In this issue, we are proud to publish In Support of the Decriminalization of Personal Drug and Paraphernalia Use and Possession: Position Statement of AMERSA, Inc. (Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research in Substance Use and Addiction). This issue also included 12 papers from the NIH’s Integrative Management of Chronic Pain and OOUD for Whole Recovery (IMPOWR) Research Network, including 2 commentaries and 10 commentaries with protocol papers.

SAj Awards

During the 2024 AMERSA Annual Conference, we awarded the 2024 SAj Best Peer Reviewer Award to Joseph Mandato, a medical student, and SAj Most Downloaded Paper to Leslie Suen, MD, MAS; Michael Incze, MD, MSEd; Caty Simon; Honora Englander, MD; Jeffrey Bratberg, PharmD, FAPhA; Gail Groves Scott, MPH; and Rachel Winograd, PhD for their authorship of Methadone’s Resurgence in Bridging the Treatment Gap in the Overdose Crisis: Position Statement of AMERSA, Inc (Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research in Substance Use and Addiction).

In December, the SAj Editorial Team announced that we will be selecting an “SAj Editors’ Choice Paper” on a quarterly basis from the papers published in the most recent issue. These articles will be highlighted in a collection on the Sage website (the publisher of SAj) and on the AMERSA website.

SAj Editorial Scholar Program

Consistent with the AMERSA strategic plan, we announced our SAj Editorial Scholar Program (https://amersa.org/saj-editorial-scholar-program/). Through this program, SAj seeks applications from multidisciplinary, post-graduate trained fellows/scholars and junior faculty to be an SAj Editorial Scholar. The goal of the SAj Editorial Scholar Program is to engage early career clinical or health services scholars with SAj’s editorial team to learn about editorial decision-making and enhance skills in scientific communication. This opportunity will be of interest to those interested in becoming journal editors as well as those looking to learn more about journal review processes. Applications are due on March 1, 2025.

Peer Review

SAj is always eager to add new peer reviewers to our slate of outstanding volunteers. The overall quality of the journal is significantly impacted by peer reviewers, whose volunteer efforts provide the Editorial Team with the information necessary to ensure that only the highest quality work appears in our journal. Comments and suggestions from peer reviewers can turn a marginal paper into a publishable work that advances the field. If you are interested in becoming a peer reviewer, please email saj@amersa.org.

For more updates, please follow SAj on Bluesky, X, and LinkedIn.

Adam J. Gordon, MD MPH FASAM DFASAM, Editor-in-Chief, SAj

We are excited to bring you the first SAj blog post of 2025! Before looking ahead to the new year, we would like to reflect on the activities of 2024.

2024 continued to be a busy year for the SAj Executive Editorial Team. The 44th volume of SAj, published in 2024, completed the transition to the new publisher, SAGE, Inc, with our new name, Substance Use & Addiction Journal on January 1, 2024.

The SAj Editorial Team, which include Editor-in-Chief (Dr. Gordon) and two Deputy Editors (Drs. Corte and Faseru), and our Associate Editors had some transitions. The Deputy Editors expanded their scope of activities and serve as a liaison to several AMERSA activities. Our three new Associate Editors (Taneisha Scheuermann, PhD (Psychology, University of Kansas), Elizabeth Siantz, PhD (Social Work, University of Utah), and Jessica Wyse, PhD (Psychology, Oregon Health Sciences) were fully onboarded into the editorial team. Dr. Binswanger resigned from the Associate Editorial team after a decade of service.

A major revision of our author instructions occurred. Changes highlighted SAj’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. In addition, consistent with this commitment, a person with lived experience was a named author in an SAj publication in 2024. SAj is now accepting “Commentaries with Protocol” manuscripts, and several authors published this article type in 2024. Several special sections from the NIH NIDA (IMPOWR Network) and a collaboration regarding Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) were accepted for publication in 2024.

We are considering several new ventures for SAj in 2025: 1) develop an “SAj Editorial Fellows” program; 2) expand DEI-related content in SAj; 3) work on getting more persons with lived experiences voices in the journal; 4) revamp the greater Editorial Board of SAj; ad 5) improve promotion and dissemination of SAj content (X/Twitter followers are 5,000+).

Thank you for your interest in SAj – we look forward to an eventful 2025!

Follow us on Bluesky, X, and LinkedIn for regular SAj-related updates. The current issue of SAj is available here.

Adam J. Gordon, MD MPH FASAM DFASAM, Editor-in-Chief, SAj

The article, “A Qualitative Exploration of Attitudes Toward Global Positioning System Tracking and Ecological Momentary Assessment Among Individuals in Substance Use Treatment” has been published in SAj.

In this article, the authors detail their findings from qualitative interviews with 30 individuals in substance use treatment programs regarding their opinions on participating in a study that involved GPS tracking and ecological momentary assessment to better understand place-based, environmental factors that may predict substance use. The authors relay the concerns and benefits as described by participants and the resulting implications for this type of research. 

In the AUTHORS’ OWN WORDS, they relate the importance of their work:

“Few previous studies have used global positioning system (GPS) tracking in concert with ecological momentary assessment (ie, the use of mobile devices to administer frequent surveys on real-world experiences) to measure the real-time exposure to such triggers or their subsequent effects on return to use. This combination of tracking technology provides an opportunity to look at the duration and frequency of exposure to triggers and other aspects of the “environmental context” on recovery and return to use.⁶”

“To our knowledge, researchers have not explored in depth the attitudes and perceptions of people in SUD treatment on the use of such tracking technology, especially GPS tracking, for research purposes. Charron et al¹⁶ recently found high levels of acceptability for different sensing technologies, but did not examine attitudes toward more active methodologies (ie, ecological momentary assessment).”

The article, “Providers’ Experiences and Perspectives in Treating Patients With Co-Occurring Opioid and Stimulant Use Disorders in the Hospital,” has been published in SAj.

In this article, the authors detail their findings from qualitative interviews with 20 hospital-based providers with a focus on treating patients who co-use opioids and stimulants. Based on the interviews, the authors identified and discussed ways in which opioid and stimulant co-use creates challenges for substance use treatment. The article also outlines provider-level and system-level opportunities to improve treatment of co-occurring opioid and stimulant use disorders among patients in the hospital setting. 

In the AUTHORS’ OWN WORDS, they relate the importance of their work:

“Qualitative research can support the development and implementation of hospital-based care for patients with substance use disorders (SUDs). For example, qualitative research findings supported the development of hospital addiction consult services (ACS)⁸ and identified key barriers and facilitators to adoption at other hospitals.⁹ Similarly, a deeper understanding of physician perspectives, available through qualitative inquiry, has informed practice facilitation strategies to implement Emergency Department-based MOUD prescribing.^10,11”

“Despite a 13.4% increase in hospitalizations involving co-use between 2016 and 2018,³ and lower rates of treatment with MOUD,²¹,²² to our knowledge, there are no hospital care pathways specifically tailored for patients with co-use. A recent qualitative study of Veterans Affairs primary care providers’ experiences and perspectives treating patients with multiple SUDs identified barriers at the patient (e.g., life instability, stigma), provider (e.g., lack of knowledge or clear guidelines), and system levels (e.g., low accessibility to specialty SUD clinics providing MOUD).²³ However, patient presentations and healthcare delivery in the hospital may be substantially different than outpatient settings. Therefore, a deeper understanding of hospital providers’ experiences and perspectives is needed to inform the development and implementation of targeted services for hospitalized patients with co-use.”