SAj Blog Archives - Page 14 of 87

SAj Accepting Manuscripts for Consideration

Dec 15, 2022 by AMERSA

INSTRUCTIONS TO SUBMIT A PAPER TO SUBSTANCE ABUSE journal (SAJ)

December 14, 2022

SAj (impact factor = 3.9) is entering its 43^rd year of publication. In 2022, the Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research in Substance Use and Addiction (AMERSA) secured a new publisher for the journal (SAGE Publications, Inc). All of the notoriety, journal metrics, editorial effectiveness, and activities of the journal will successfully transfer to the new publisher.

While the new website portal to submit to SAj is being developed, we invite you submit your authored work to be considered for publication in SAj to us directly via email. Submission will be peer reviewed (blinded to reviewers and authors) and its outcome for publication in SAj will be adjudicated relatively quickly by the editorial team. Accepted articles through this email process will be published in SAj in the print journal in 2023. Once published, we will highly promote your findings, commentary, and/or narrative through our blog and social media platforms.

In order to submit to SAj during the publisher transition, please follow the following instructions:

Please FORMAT your manuscript as described at https://amersa.org/instructions-for-authors-2/ . Please note that these instructions are dynamic and may change during the transition to a new publisher, but the types, general format, and word counts/limits will be maintained.
Please submit your COMPLETE MANUSCRIPT (including cover page, abstract, references, tables, figures, online appendices, etc.) as an attachment addressed to the email below. This document represents your entire work. Please title the COMPLETE MANUSCRIPT title with the word COMPLETE, corresponding author’s last name, year of submission, month of submission date of submission (e.g., COMPLETE_GORDON_2022_12_14). Please submit as a Microsoft Word document.
Please submit your BLINDED MANUCRIPT (no cover page, no identifying information throughout the narrative/text using blacked out text “…University of Utah IRB…”)) as an attachment addressed to the email below. Please label the BLINDED article with a brief descriptive name, year of submission (YYYY), date of submission (MMDD) (e.g., BLINDED_PerspectivesOfOpioidPrescribers_2022_12_14). This document will be converted to a .pdf file (by us) and sent to external peer reviewers. Please submit the BLINDED MANUSCRIPT as a Microsoft Word document.
Please submit a COVER LETTER which confirms, attests, and relates the following. Please title the COVER LETTER title with the word COVER, corresponding author’s last name, year of submission, month of submission date of submission (e.g., COVER_GORDON_2022_12_14). Please submit the COVER LETTER as a .pdf formatted document.
1. Confirm that the paper represents original work and that its content has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere
1. Confirm that all the authors have approved the final version of the manuscript
1. Provide an accounting whether the work has been presented in oral or poster form and, if so, what conference/venue was the work presented at and the date(s) of the presentation
1. Declare any conflict of interests of any of the authors
1. Attest and provide permission for any second party material has been obtained and will be submitted as evidence
If your work has been previously peer-reviewed in other journals and you have revised your work based on these prior reviews, we welcome you to provide 1) the prior reviews and 2) your responses to the prior reviews in the COVER LETTER. We expect that you will provide these prior reviews in total, without editing or elimination of narrative you deem not appropriate. Please see our author instruction website for further instructions on this process. This may, but is not guaranteed, to expedite our review process.
Upon receipt of your email with 3 attachments a “received SAj submission” email will be sent within 24 hours.

All submissions should be sent to Adam J. Gordon MD MPH, SAj Editor-In-Chief at the email address: SAjEditorAMERSA@gmail.com. Questions about this process can also be addressed at that email.

SAj Flashback: Inhalant Use and Risky Behavior Correlates in a Sample of Rural Middle School Students

Oct 14, 2022 by AMERSA

In this SAj Flashback, we take it all the way back to 2008 with “Inhalant Use and Risky Behavior Correlates in a Sample of Rural Middle School Students” from authors Jessica Legge Muilenburg, PhD and William D. Johnson, PhD.

At the time, this study found 20.4% of children attending a middle school located in rural Mississippi had used inhalants to “get high,” a figure that is much larger than the national average. Many (3.4%) students reported they had used inhalants on 10 or more occasions. Inhalant use was most associated with being younger, ever smoking, riding with a driver who had been drinking, and being involved in a fight. Nearly twice as many younger students reported usage in our sample compared to other studies. Longitudinal studies need to be conducted to investigate whether use of inhalants is a precursor to other risky behaviors, and subsequent progression to alcohol abuse or illicit drug use.

You can still read this article in SAj Volume 27, Issue 4 or online.

New in SAj: Transforming an educational ecosystem for substance use disorders: A multi-modal model for continuous curricular improvement and institutional change

Oct 13, 2022 by AMERSA

In “Transforming an educational ecosystem for substance use disorders: A multi-modal model for continuous curricular improvement and institutional change” authors elaborate the construct and process of “educational ecosystem transformation” as a tool for the evolution of the educational ecosystem and its situated curriculum that will eventually drive the enrichment of the healthcare workforce. Drawing from traditional models of curriculum development, recent work on transforming the hidden curriculum, the clinical learning environment, and change management strategies, this new approach uses a health equity and structural competence lens to interrogate and deconstruct a learning system in order to identify opportunities to change, strengthen, and deepen a learner’s experience around a specific topic.

This commentary comes from Jason M. Satterfield, PhD; Karen Werder , PhD, PMHNP-BC; Stephanie Reynolds, MPH; Irina Kryzhanovskaya, MD; and Alexa Colgrove Curtis, PhD, MPH, FNP, PMHNP.

This commentary is new to SAj, published September 2, 2022. You can read it now in SAj Volume 43, Issue 1 or online.

The Authors’ Own Words: A Call for Training Graduate Medical Students on Harm Reduction for People Who Inject Drugs

Oct 12, 2022 by AMERSA

In this letter to the editor, authors share that there is a lack of standardized education on topic of harm reduction for graduate medical students. In order to fill this curricular gap, we delivered a two-hour pilot training introducing local community harm reduction organizations and harm reduction ideology and strategies for people who inject drugs to graduate medical students at Boston University.

Raagini Jawa, MD, MPH; Nivetha Saravanan, BA; Shana A. B. Burrowes, MPH, PhD; and Lindsay Demers, PhD share with SAj, “due to the ongoing opioid epidemic, the prevalence of people who inject drugs (PWID) continues to increase, and it is critical for medical trainees and providers to be exposed to, and familiar with, community harm reduction resources and strategies, which are often siloed outside of medical curricula. Even though nearly three-fourths of our respondents had prior classroom didactics on substance use disorders, our stand-alone introductory training was effective in increasing graduate medical students comfort and knowledge of harm reduction ideology, safer injection techniques, and naloxone administration- all practical risk mitigation tools they can utilize later in their clinical careers. Our findings serve as an example that introducing harm reduction education early within medical training ought to be explored and inclusion of community harm reduction organizations during trainings may serve as a future model to facilitate integrated care delivery for PWID.”

You can read this letter now in SAj Volume 42, Issue 3 or online.

SAj Flashback: Research priorities for expanding access to methadone treatment for opioid use disorder in the United States: A National Institute on Drug Abuse Center for Clinical Trials Network Task Force report

Oct 11, 2022 by AMERSA

In this SAj Flashback, we look back to “A National Institute on Drug Abuse Center for Clinical Trials Network Task Force report” from SAj Volume 42, Issue 3. This commentary comes from authors Paul J. Joudrey, MD, MPH; Gavin Bart, MD, PhD; Robert K. Brooner, PhD; Lawrence Brown, MD, MPH; Julie Dickson-Gomez, PhD; Adam Gordon, MD, MPH; Sarah S. Kawasaki, MD; Jane M. Liebschutz, MD MPH; Edward Nunes, MD; Dennis McCarty, PhD; Robert P. Schwartz, MD; José Szapocnik, PhD; Madhukar Trivedi, MD; Judith I. Tsui, MD MPH; Arthur Williams, MD; Li-Tzy Wu, DSc; and David A. Fiellin, MD.

In the US, methadone treatment can only be provided to patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) through federal and state-regulated opioid treatment programs (OTPs). There is a shortage of OTPs, and racial and geographic inequities exist in access to methadone treatment. The National Institute on Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network convened the Methadone Access Research Task Force to develop a research agenda to expand and create more equitable access to methadone treatment for OUD. This research agenda included mechanisms that are available within and outside the current regulations. The task force identified 6 areas where research is needed: (1) access to methadone in general medical and other outpatient settings; (2) the impact of methadone treatment setting on patient outcomes; (3) impact of treatment structure on outcomes in patients receiving methadone; (4) comparative effectiveness of different medications to treat OUD; (5) optimal educational and support structure for provision of methadone by medical providers; and (6) benefits and harms of expanded methadone access. In addition to outlining these research priorities, the task force identified important cross-cutting issues, including the impact of patient characteristics, treatment, and treatment system characteristics such as methadone formulation and dose, concurrent behavioral treatment, frequency of dispensing, urine or oral fluid testing, and methods of measuring clinical outcomes. Together, the research priorities and cross-cutting issues represent a compelling research agenda to expand access to methadone in the US.

Read this commentary now in SAj Volume 42, Issue 3 or online.