Summary/Abstract
The 2016 report issued by the Surgeon General’s Office, “Facing Addiction in America,” the
first of its kind issued by the Surgeon General, brought into stark relief the major impact of
substance misuse and use disorders and the need to rethink how prevention and treatment
services are currently delivered in the United States. While isolated aspects of substance misuse
are improving, such as tobacco cessation and opioid prescribing practices, enormous service gaps
persist that allow the ongoing and enormous negative impacts of risky and problem substance
use. Further, these negative impacts put a particular burden on gender and ethnic minorities and
other disadvantaged populations and communities. The isolation of specialist substance abuse
treatment from mainstream medicine, the report further points out, presents a barrier to a
potentially more effective public health model to reduce substance-related harms. If this
landscape of epidemic substance misuse, use disorders, and related conditions is to improve and
patient and public health and safety outcomes enhanced, prevention and treatment services
delivery require rethinking. The Addiction Health Services Research conference, held since
2005, has annually brought together researchers, policy makers, and treatment providers to focus
upon how such systems redesign might most effectively be implemented and sustained. In the
current application, we propose to enhance this conference by specifically focusing on improving
the well-being of gender and ethnic minorities and other marginalized groups struggling with
risky and problem substance use. We encourage participation by underrepresented scientists
through the establishment of a NIDA Minority Investigator Award and enhancement of a junior
investigator mentoring program. A slate of distinguished plenary speakers, discussion of cutting-
edge health services research findings, the development of collaborative relationships, and
support of the careers of junior and minority investigators is proposed to move forward an
agenda of broadening the positive impact of prevention and treatment services for substance
misuse and use disorders.