An exciting opportunity exists for an exceptional candidate who is interested in undertaking a PhD project in the field of implementation science, within the Implementing work-related Mental health guidelines in general PRacticE (IMPRovE) NHMRC Partnership Trial.

Located within the Department of General Practice at Monash University, IMPRovE will implement the recently published Clinical practice guidelines for the diagnosis and management of work-related mental health conditions through a pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial. Our key objectives are to increase the delivery of evidence-based general practice care for patients, assess the cost-effectiveness of our intervention and plan for national scale up. Components of the intervention will include academic detailing, peer-to-peer support and learning through a digital Community of Practice and the provision of resources.

The PhD project attached to this scholarship will focus on using implementation science theory and methods to contribute to a process evaluation of the IMPRovE trial. Supported by a large interdisciplinary team of investigators, and policy and practice partners, the PhD candidate will characterise the aspects of the intervention and our partnership approach that are likely to lead to successful change in GP practice, and to characterise aspects that may hinder success. This will involve initially undertaking a systematic review to identify the elements of a successful digital Community of Practice. Then, the focus will move towards evaluating the successful and unsuccessful components of the intervention as part of the process evaluation of the trial.

This position is located in the Data Development and Dissemination Unit (DDDU), Research and Trend Analysis Branch (RAB), Division for Policy Analysis and Public Affairs (DPA), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna, Austria.

The Programme Officer will manage the strategic and technical development of the Drugs Monitoring Platform (DMP), a comprehensive online system for collecting, monitoring and mapping drug-related data.

Based on the mandate on drugs as conferred by Members States, the DMP contributes to strengthening UNODC’s data collection, analysis and dissemination of information to enhance knowledge on drugs.

Reporting to the Board of Directors, the  Secretariat Director will have overall operational responsibility for EASL International Liver Foundation staff, programmes, expansion, and execution of its mission, in line with the foundation’s strategy. S/he will initially develop a deep knowledge of the field, core programmes, operations, and business/financial plans.

Sheffield University has an opportunity in the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) for an experienced and motivated Research Group Manager to contribute to research undertaken by the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group (SARG), one of seven research themes within the section of Public Health.

SARG is internationally recognised as a leading centre for alcohol policy, epidemiological and economic research, bringing together disciplines including public health, operational  Research, psychology, social policy, engineering and economics.

This is a managerial role with scope to influence the strategic direction of our research group. You will work closely with SARG’s management team to develop and deliver our strategic objectives, evaluate our collective actions, and will be responsible for the financial, operational, risk and administrative management of SARG’s activities, supported by the Research Administrator.

Project Title

How do Heavy Drinkers Make Enduring Changes to Their Drinking Behaviour after Taking Part in "Dry January"?

Description

‘Dry January’ and other campaigns in which people attempt to abstain from alcohol for a month are increasingly popular. Temporary abstinence from alcohol combined with remote support may help heavy drinkers to reduce their alcohol consumption in the longer-term. However, we know very little about the psychological and social mechanisms through which people change their drinking behaviour.

This mixed-methods PhD project will directly address this important evidence gap. The candidate will conduct prospective observational studies that will recruit people who attempt a ‘Dry January’ or temporary abstinence at another time of year and ask them about the ways in which they attempt to change their behaviour and their social activities, the psychological changes that they experience, and their drinking behaviour several months later.

They will also conduct semi-structured interviews with people who have attempted to temporarily abstain from alcohol, and ethnographic studies of postings on Dry January forums and other online forums. 

The University of Sheffield, in partnership with Alcohol Change UK, is pleased to offer this fully-funded PhD Studentship as part of the ESRC White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership.

Project Title

TeenPath: Social Environment, Health and Well-Being Among Adolescents in Ireland

Project Description

The project seeks to understand how family, neighbourhood environment and family social and economic circumstances interact with individual characteristics such as sex, personality and temperament to shape mental health, health behaviours and educational outcomes at the end of secondary schooling and the cusp of adulthood.

We ask three interlinked questions:

1. “how do peer relationships and exposure to social media influence the risk of developing anxiety and depression?”;
2. “how do family, neighbourhood and individual characteristics shape the development of health behaviours such as diet, exercise, smoking and alcohol consumption?”;
3. “did the financial crisis and recession experienced in Ireland between 2008 and 2014 influence educational outcomes at the end of secondary school and if so, how?”

Project Title

Risk, Uncertainty, and Reward Experiences

Project rationale and description

This project focuses on the effects of various kinds of uncertainty on peoples’ reward-seeking behaviours, with a focus on the consumption of alcohol, gambling products and services, food and drugs. Learning more about the situational, social and psychological factors that promote unhealthy consumption could help us to develop better ways to help affected individuals. The project will use experimental (lab-based as well as online) and survey methods, and will suit someone with interests in cognition, behavioural economics, consumer behaviours, and social factors in health. 

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust provides specialist inpatient and community mental health, learning disabilities, addiction services and acquired brain injury services for the people of Liverpool, Sefton and Kirkby, Merseyside. 

Applications are invited for a full-time Consultant Psychiatrist in Addiction Psychiatry within the Addictions Services team at Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust.

This post (10 PAs) provides the opportunity to work with one other full time consultant, to deliver clinical leadership across our community and inpatient bases within Liverpool and the Sefton/Southport areas. Both Consultants will be supported by two specialty doctors and psychiatry trainees in the Health Education England North West rotation scheme.

You will be supporting our multi-disciplinary teams to deliver high quality care and a range of treatment interventions to service users with complex care needs.

EMCDDA are looking for trainees to work for these units:

Scientific Coordination (SDI)

Based within the Scientific Coordination team, the trainee will provide support for the organisation of the scientific conference Lisbon Addictions 2021, the EMCDDA future's project and cross-agency/organisation institutional collaboration. The trainee will also assist with the planning, implementation and follow-up of various technical meetings.

Public Health Unit (HEA)

Based within the public health coordination, the trainee will assist the public health unit in work with implementation of important priorities linked to drug trends analysis, drug policy and practice. In addition, the trainee will assit with tasks linked to evaluation and preparation of the next European Responses Guide. The trainee will also assist with tasks including meeting preparation and support, ad hoc literature reviews

Risks to Public Safety and Security Unit (SAS)

Based within the SAS unit, the trainees will contribute to the work of two areas: 1) new psychoactive substances, and 2) drug markets, crime and supply reduction. In particular, in area 1), the trainee will contribute to: NPS data management; support the operation of the EU Early Warning System, including the preparation of reports on new psychoactive substances such as Initial Reports and Risk Assessments; and the monitoring of open source information. In area 2), the trainee will support the development, implementation and data analysis of supply-related data collections and tools; the technical content of expert meetings and training; and the development of the EMCDDA's open source information monitoring programme. The trainee will also contribute to anticipated threat assessments.
Traineeship offer (M/F) 

The Section on Clinical Psychoneuroendocrinology and Neuropsychopharmacology (CPN) is a translational and clinical laboratory of the National Institutes of Health Intramural Research Program (NIH IRP), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), jointly funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and is currently recruiting a Post-Doctoral Fellow.

The laboratory conducts human clinical and translational inpatient and outpatient studies to identify possible novel medications for addiction.

The overall goal of these studies is to identify and develop novel effective treatments for alcohol and substance use disorder. The focus of the laboratory is to study novel pathways related to the microbiome-gut-liver-brain axis, with special emphasis on neuroendocrine pathways, gut microbiome and surgical manipulations of the gut-brain axis. Neuroimaging experiments are also employed and integrated in these human laboratory studies. The selected candidate will have access to lectures, educational, mentoring and grant training opportunities at the lab-level, and NIH-wide.

Department: Prevention Science Institute

Position Summary: The Data Science Specialist works with PSI scientists on various federal grants and sponsored projects, including a large-scale, multi-site centre grant (P50).

The incumbent interfaces with and provides support across P50 projects to facilitate data harmonisation of projects involving multiple sources of data and means of data collection (observation, biospecimen, imaging, Qualtrics, REDCap, etc.). This person develops shared program syntax for P50 projects and pilots to facilitate data harmonization and organizes harmonized data for repository archiving. The incumbent writes and maintains meta-data documentation for the shared data repository following guidelines in data sharing protocols. They coordinate with the P50 Data Science Core to assess and implement data science priorities.

Support for other projects includes acting as a resource to personnel accessing data; coordinating with methodologists; running routine descriptive analysis; cleaning, formatting, and preparing files for datasets; and conducting light analysis, such as descriptive analysis and frequencies

Department Summary: The Prevention Science Institute (PSI) at the University of Oregon (UO) is a multidisciplinary research institute focused on improving the lives of children, families, and adults through science, outreach, and program delivery. The PSI includes faculty from across the UO who work together to understand prevention and health promotion through translational science and applied intervention research.

We conduct research from multiple perspectives, including translational research that focuses on interactions between the brain, social context, and behaviour; developing, testing, and delivering effective intervention programs; and efficacious ways to disseminate programs into community, agency, and school settings.

The Criminal Justice Research Center (CJRC) at The Pennsylvania State University (www.justicecenter.psu.edu) invites applications for a Postdoctoral Scholar position to begin June 1, 2020, or as soon as possible thereafter. The CJRC supports innovative criminal justice research focused on the connections between research, policy, and practice.

The successful applicant will collaborate with Dr Jeremy Staff in the Department of Sociology and Criminology and Dr Jennifer Maggs in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies on substance use research that focuses on the precursors, correlates, and consequences of electronic and combustible cigarette use in adolescence.

Responsibilities will include analyses of longitudinal data; preparation of grant proposals, manuscripts, and conference presentations; and participation in graduate student mentoring. In addition to collaborative projects, the scholar will have access to exceptional resources to facilitate his or her independent research. 

If selected as a finalist for the position, recommendation letters will be requested. Preference will be given to candidates with advanced training in statistics and experience analyzing longitudinal datasets, and to those with an interest in and likelihood of developing an independent research program focusing on adolescent substance use. 

Project title: Determinants and Psychological Correlates of Sustained Behaviour Change and Recovery from Addiction

Project description:  Although difficult, many people who are addicted to alcohol or drugs eventually recover from their addiction, often without any formal treatment. Similarly, many heavy drinkers are able to ‘cut down’ their alcohol consumption, sometimes without help and often in response to life changes. There is some preliminary evidence that both types of recovery / behaviour change are accompanied by important psychological changes such that involve executive functions, automatic cognitive processing biases, and subjective beliefs about alcohol. These observations raise a number of additional questions, answers to which could contribute important information about the process of behaviour change and how treatments might be optimized in order to bring about those psychological changes. For example, which psychological processes (if any) play the most important causal role in behaviour change, and which arise as a consequence of behaviour change? How do addiction treatments and behaviour change interventions influence these psychological constructs, and how might those interventions need to be modified in the future? This research would involve a series of cross-sectional and longitudinal investigations of people who have yet to change their behaviour, people who are currently attempting to change, and people who have successfully changed their behaviour or recovered from addiction. It may also involve work to build on and clarify the observations from these studies, such as experimental field studies, or development and preliminary evaluation of novel interventions.

Project Title: Risk, Uncertainty, and Reward Experiences.

Project rationale and description: This project focuses on the effects of various kinds of uncertainty on peoples’ reward-seeking behaviours, with a focus on the consumption of alcohol, gambling products and services, food and drugs. Learning more about the situational, social and psychological factors that promote unhealthy consumption could help us to develop better ways to help affected individuals. The project will use experimental (lab-based as well as online) and survey methods, and will suit someone with interests in cognition, behavioural economics, consumer behaviours, and social factors in health. 

Job Description:

The Director of Membership & Affiliates provides primary leadership and management for all aspects of membership and affiliate growth and engagement. Success relies on the ability to view members and potential members from different perspectives, identify and anticipate member needs and how this drive perceived value of membership, and determine the most effective ways to involve members in way that respects their personal and professional commitment. In addition, this role will be the liaison between NAADAC and its state and international affiliates, coordinate regional and state calls and events, and collaborate with other departments to promote and grow NAADAC events, programs, and services.

The Addiction Medicine physician will provide patient care in the context of multidisciplinary teams in both the inpatient and outpatient settings to patients who suffer from substance abuse disorders or who are at-risk. The physician may additionally provide didactic and clinical teaching of fellows, residents and other learners.

This is an opportunity to work with a multi-disciplinary team that is nationally recognized for their contributions to teaching, research, and leadership in Addiction Medicine.

The School of Medicine and Public Health has a deep and profound commitment to diversity both as an end in itself but, also as a valuable means for eliminating health disparities. As such, we strongly encourage applications from candidates who foster and promote the values of diversity and inclusion.

Project Title: Determining the impact of underage alcohol/substance use on child health and well-being

Description: English statistics report that in 2016, almost half of girls (46%) and boys (43%) aged 11-15 years had consumed alcohol. This increased to 65% by 16-17 years. Almost a quarter of 15-year olds (23%) reported being drunk within the past 4 weeks, and by 14 years, approximately one third had tried an illicit substance (e.g. cannabis). Underage alcohol/substance use (UASU) can have significant long-term consequences on brain development, and increases risk of accident/injury, violent/criminal behaviour, pregnancy/STIs, and lowers educational/employment attainment. These effects can be more pronounced in lower socio-economic populations, important for Liverpool where 33% of those <16yrs live in poverty. Despite the common involvement of alcohol and substance use in emergency department visits which involve 'adverse' factors (e.g. violence, self-harm), few emergency departments offer any alcohol/substance-related interventions to underage patients.

This research will provide a comprehensive understanding of underage alcohol/substance use (UASU). The successful candidate will work with children, families, paediatric clinicians, and organisations (e.g. schools) to determine attitudes around UASU, and identify factors that increase UASU and perceived barriers to reducing this behaviour. This data will be collected via a range of quantitative (e.g. surveys) and qualitative (e.g. interviews) research methods, and consider the impact of health inequalities.

The candidate will work with existing healthcare records to better understand the nature of UASU admissions. The candidate will conduct relevant systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses to identify the current evidence around effective interventions to reduce UASU. This work will support collaboration with adolescents and healthcare professionals to develop guidance on tools which can be used in clinical/non-clinical settings to identify and/or reduce UASU.

The Tobacco Tactics team is looking for a Monitoring Coordinator to join working on the STOP project. 

TobaccoTactics.org is a unique academic resource that summarises research and monitoring findings on the tobacco industry and its allies in an evidence-based and user-friendly format. It is used globally by politicians, civil servants, journalists and advocates. You will be joining at an exciting time, when TobaccoTactics is being integrated into a larger web platform to function as a global watchdog on the tobacco industry.

You will be required to carry out global and regional monitoring of the tobacco industry, its allies and fronts. You will coordinate this monitoring with that of other members of the Tobacco Tactics team, as well as other partners within the STOP project. You will edit and update existing content as well as research and develop new profiles for the TobaccoTactics website.

You will be required to brief project partners and external stakeholders, including conducting media interviews, about the work of Tobacco Tactics under the direction of the Managing Editor and the Marketing & Communications Lead. That includes the production of a variety of materials for a range of audiences, including regular webinars/podcasts. 

You will have experience and knowledge of undertaking research and writing for a general audience, ideally in a public health research or journalistic setting. 

We are looking for someone who has an understanding of corporate political activity ideally in health (tobacco/ food / alcohol) or other related subjects (e.g. (oil/pharma) Although knowledge of the global tobacco industry or tobacco control is desirable, knowledge of corporate political activity more generally will be considered favourably.  

We require someone who can work in a small team to synthesise information from a range of diverse sources, provide strategic analysis and convey that to a variety of audiences and in a number of different formats. We are particularly interested in someone who can show an understanding of company accounts and other financial analysis.

Turning Point is a national addiction treatment centre, dedicated to providing high quality, evidence-based treatment to people adversely affected by alcohol, drugs and gambling, integrated with world-leading research and education. The Monash Addiction Research Centre (MARC) draws on the multidisciplinary strengths and capabilities of researchers across the University to develop and test novel, scalable prevention and treatment approaches. We are looking to engage a Research Impact and Translation Manager, who will be responsible for delivering research findings to internal and external stakeholders in a way that builds research impact nationally.

Based at Turning Point in Richmond and reporting to the Director of Turning Point and MARC, the Research Impact and Translation Manager will work with Turning Point and MARC leadership, researchers and clinicians to develop, implement and evaluate a research impact program; collaboratively establishing processes and systems to enable translation of research and achieve research impact. The incumbent will also build strong networks and champion an understanding of research and its application across the community. The position will manage the production and delivery of regular syntheses of research, using innovative and engaging communications methods.