Tools for Measuring Exposure to Psychosocial Stress and Addictive Substances

The Psychosocial Stress and Addictive Substances Program was solicited through RFA-DA-07-005.  This program seeks to develop improved tools for measuring exposure to psychosocial stress and addictive substances (both licit and illicit).  The ability to precisely measure these exposures will advance our understanding of their interaction with genetic factors in the etiology of human diseases.  Current measures of psychosocial stress and addictive substances can be difficult to deploy in large-scale, field-based population studies.  They generally detect static, single-agent or one-time exposures, or they rely on retrospective self-report, or require laboratory-based collection and analysis.  As a consequence, they offer minimal information about changes in exposure and responses over time (i.e., temporal resolution), intensity (e.g., dosage or concentration), and across locations (i.e., spatial resolution).  More comprehensive measurement is needed to assess acute, chronic, and cumulative exposures to psychosocial stress and addictive substances with a high degree of temporal and spatial resolution (i.e., as a person moves through environments).  In addition, these tools should be able to detect exposure throughout the life course and among varied population groups.  The projects funded through this program promise to make advances in real-time measurement, develop novel targets and platforms for measurement, and decrease participant burden through miniaturization, automated measurement, and improved usability of measurement devices.   
Five awards were made through this solicitation: 

1. Thomas W. Kamarck, University of Pittsburgh (PDF Document, 1 page)
2. Santosh Kumar, University of Memphis (PDF Document, 2 pages)
3. Gregory D. Kirk, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health
   Kenzie L. Preston, National Institute on Drug Abuse (PDF Document, 1 Page)
4. Mark S. Rea, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (PDF Document, 1 Page)
5. Vivek Shetty, Dr. Med. Dent, University of California, Los Angeles (PDF Document, 1 Page)

For additional information, please contact:
           

Jeffrey D. Schulden, M.D.
Program Co-Director
National Institute on Drug Abuse
(301) 402-1526
schuldenj@nida.nih.gov

Kay Wanke, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Program Co-Director
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
(301) 435-3718
wankek@mail.nih.gov

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