Translating Contingency Management to a Natural Setting

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Project Summary: The applicant, an addiction psychiatrist, will attend the doctoral program in criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. As his dissertation project the applicant will perform a study investigating whether a contingency management intervention can be effectively translated to a natural criminal justice setting, namely the Philadelphia Adult Probation and Parole Department. The intervention consists of intensive urine toxicology screening coupled with the application of a series of graduated consequences (positive or negative) for continued drug use. The intervention will be applied in a randomized, controlled trial fashion to a population of primarily African-American non-violent drug-using offenders who have been sentenced to house arrest with electronic monitoring and drug treatment. By using a randomized controlled trial the applicant hopes to contribute to evidence-based clinical practices as well as correctional practices. The first goal of the study is to ascertain the effectiveness of the translation of the intervention to a "real world" criminal justice setting. The second goal is to determine if the intervention condition leads to significantly more abstinence from drugs, less involvement with crime, and less re-incarceration than supervision as usual. The third goal is to determine if any moderators of treatment effect can be identified. Relevance: This project is directly in line with the initiatives outlined in the NIH Roadmap for NIDA Investigators, specifically with the themes "Research Teams of the Future" and "Re-engineering the Clinical Research Enterprise". In combining the applicant's expertise in addiction psychiatry with formal education in criminology, this study is clearly an example of a "novel research training and education program that provide[s] integrated interdisciplinary training." In drawing from the pre-clinical and clinical literature to translate a known behavioral intervention (contingency management) to a novel, natural setting, this proposal embodies "multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary clinical and translational research" and is an "application of new knowledge and techniques to clinical practice at the front lines of patient care."