Drug Involvement in Context: Quantitative Perspectives

描述（由申请人提供）： 这一指导研究科学家奖的建议旨在为候选人提供有关向药物使用和依赖过渡的行为、环境和神经生物学机制的培训。拟议的职业发展计划将增加新的掌握的概念，原则和方法，从几个分支的生物行为研究药物参与。长期目标是建立候选人作为一个独立的研究者谁将开发和定制新的生物统计方法，导致从药物参与的最早阶段过渡到依赖的新的理解，把这些过渡到上下文与其他先行或共同发生的生活环境，社会背景和生物行为脆弱性特征。 几位具有互补技能的导师将在候选人的职业发展过程中提供建议。主要赞助人James Anthony博士将为候选人在吸毒流行病学领域的培训提供咨询。共同赞助者迈克尔·纳德博士和顾问凯瑟琳·格兰特博士将为候选人在神经生物学和药物滥用生物行为研究领域的培训提供建议。共同赞助人Mark Wolfson博士和顾问Nikolas Ialongo博士将分别为候选人在社区和课堂干预领域的培训提供建议。大卫奥特曼博士将提供药物滥用政策方面的援助。肯道奇和罗伯特杜兰特博士将提供援助的侵略性和暴力行为的背景下使用毒品。 候选人的研究计划将侧重于解决与青年从早期接触机会过渡到后期使用毒品的过程有关的知识差距。与候选人之前的方法学工作相一致，重点将是与行为库研究相关的方法的应用和发展，这些行为库是潜在的和不可测量的条件的指标。候选人将使用现有的数据来解决研究问题，这些问题将作为独立研究项目的基础，该项目将研究药物行为的演变及其与个人和环境因素的联系。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal for a Mentored Research Scientist Award is designed to provide the candidate with training in the behavioral, environmental and neurobiological mechanisms underlying the transitions to drug use and dependence. The proposed career development plan will add new masteries of concepts, principles and methods from several branches of biobehavioral research on drug involvement. The long term goal is to establish the candidate as an independent investigator who will develop and tailor new biostatistical methods that lead to new understandings of transitions from the earliest stages of drug involvement onward to dependence, placing these transitions into context with other antecedent or co-occurring life circumstances, social contexts, and biobehavioral vulnerability traits. Several mentors with complimentary skills will advise the candidate during her career development. Primary sponsor Dr. James Anthony will advise the candidate's training in the area of drug use epidemiology. Cosponsor Dr. Michael Nader and consultant Dr. Kathleen Grant will advise the candidate's training in the area of neurobiology and biobehavioral research on drug abuse. Co-sponsor Dr. Mark Wolfson and consultant Dr. Nikolas Ialongo will advise the candidate's training in the area of community and classroom interventions, respectively. Dr. David Altman will provide assistance on drug abuse policy. Drs. Ken Dodge and Robert DuRant will provide assistance on aggressive and violent behaviors in the context of drug use. The candidate's research plan will focus on addressing gaps in knowledge related to the process by which youths make transitions from early exposure opportunities to later drug use. Consistent with the candidate's prior methodological work, the focus will be on the application and development of methods related to the study of behavior repertoires that are indicators of underlying and otherwise unmeasureable conditions. The candidate will use available data to address research questions that will serve as groundwork for an independent research program that will examine the evolution of drug behaviors and their links with both individual and contextual factors.