Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Nov 2023
Recovery incentives program: California's contingency management benefit.
The role of methamphetamine and cocaine use in California's drug poisoning (overdose) crisis has dramatically increased in the past five (5) years and has disproportionately affected American Indian, Alaska Native, and Black Californians. No FDA-approved medications currently exist for the treatment of individuals with stimulant use disorder (StimUD). Outside the Veteran's Administration, the Recovery Incentives Program: California's Contingency Management Benefit is the first large scale implementation of contingency management (CM). CM is the behavioral treatment with the most evidence and largest effect sizes for StimUD. ⋯ The California Department of Health Care Services contracted with UCLA to develop and implement a robust evaluation of the Program; goals include evaluating the effectiveness of real-world implementation and facilitating quality improvement. The project will likely significantly impact the use of CM for StimUD nationally and may well reduce stimulant-related drug poisoning deaths.
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Preventive medicine · Nov 2023
Randomized Controlled TrialRandomized clinical trial examining financial incentives for smoking cessation among mothers of young children and possible impacts on child secondhand smoke exposure.
This randomized clinical trial examined whether financial-incentives increase smoking cessation among mothers of young children and potential impacts on child secondhand-smoke exposure (SHSe). 198 women-child dyads were enrolled and assigned to one of three treatment conditions: best practices (BP, N = 68), best practices plus financial incentives (BP + FI, N = 63), or best practices, financial incentives, and nicotine replacement therapy (BP + FI + NRT, N = 67). The trial was completed in Vermont, USA between June 2015 and October 2020. BP entailed staff referral to the state tobacco quitline; financial incentives entailed mothers earning vouchers exchangeable for retail items for 12 weeks contingent on biochemically-verified smoking abstinence; NRT involved mothers receiving 10 weeks of free transdermal nicotine and nicotine lozenges/gum. ⋯ There was a significant effect of treatment condition (F[2109] = 3.64, P = .029) on SHSe with levels in BP and BP + FI significantly below BP + FI + NRT (ts[109] ≥ -2.30, Ps ≤ 0.023). Financial incentives for smoking abstinence are efficacious for increasing maternal cessation but that alone was insufficient for reducing child SHSe. ClinicalTrials.gov:NCT05740098.
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Preventive medicine · Nov 2023
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) research priorities to support the development of incentive-based treatments for substance use disorders.
The purpose of this commentary is to highlight current research priorities of National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Division of Therapeutics and Medical Consequences (DTMC) regarding the development and testing of incentive-based interventions for the treatment of substance use disorders (SUDs). This manuscript summarizes the NIH Stage Model for behavioral intervention development, briefly reviews existing research on incentive-based treatments for SUDs that falls within the scope of DTMC at NIDA and highlights the development of digital therapeutics-based incentive interventions as an exemplar and high priority area. ⋯ Finally, we mention several related funding opportunities for researchers interested in developing incentive-based approaches for SUD treatment. The overall goal of this commentary is to inform the research community of current NIDA priority areas for intervention development and funding.
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Preventive medicine · Nov 2023
Federal legal and regulatory aspects of contingency management incentives.
Incentives are an integral part of Contingency Management (CM) Programs for substance use disorder treatment, primarily for the treatment stimulant use disorders, but because stimulant use often co-occurs with opioid use, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) permits the use of CM incentives as a part of its State Opioid Response grant program. However, incentives implicate federal laws and could result in either financial penalties or criminal sanctions against programs that use them. ⋯ Following the recommended guardrails should allow providers to employ CM strategies to help their patients by making clear that the intent is to help patients without engaging in kickbacks, illegal inducements or false claims.
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Preventive medicine · Nov 2023
ReviewThe fourth wave of the overdose crisis: Examining the prominent role of psychomotor stimulants with and without fentanyl.
The current overdose and broader public health crisis involving illicit drug use is often referred to as the "opioid" or "fentanyl" crisis. Clearly there is extensive data on the profound damage done by opioids over the past 20 years and specifically by fentanyl in the past 5 years. However, there is an extensive array of data that suggests there is more to the current crisis than opioids/fentanyl. ⋯ Despite the overwhelming evidence supporting CM, it is not being widely used in routine treatment outside the VA healthcare system. This paper reviews some of the (a) evidence for CM, (b) CM protocol design elements that require consideration, (c) current obstacles to the widespread implementation of CM, and (d) strategies for addressing these obstacles. Overcoming these obstacles is a priority to allow routine use of CM as a treatment for StimUD.