UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Social Science Research Institute’s (SSRI) Consortium on Substance Use and Addiction (CSUA) hosted the sixth annual conference in May at the the Eric J. Barron Innovation Hub at Penn State University Park.
Drawing over 150 attendees throughout the day, including through the Zoom livestream, the conference kicked off with a welcome from Deborah Ehrenthal, SSRI director.
The keynote speaker, Edward Nunes, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, Irving Medical Center, and research psychiatrist at New York State Psychiatry Institute, presented on co-occurring psychiatric and substance use disorders.
“The general population struggles to understand addiction, and they have a difficult time wrapping their heads around treating opioid addiction with medication,” Nunes said.
Following Nunes’ keynote presentation, the first panel session focused four alcohol-themed talks from Penn State community members, including: Brad Linn, assistant professor of family and community medicine, molecular and precision medicine, and psychiatry and behavioral health at the College of Medicine; Rachel Marcus, doctoral student in developmental and child psychology; Nikki Crowley, Huck Early Career Chair in Neurobiology and Neural Engineering and assistant professor of biology and of biomedical engineering; and Grayson Sipe, assistant professor of biology.
The second morning session was a series of research flash talks. Presenters included Dan Mallinson, associate professor of public policy and administration at Penn State Harrisburg who presented about testing the effects of policy design using cannabis policy bundles; Sophia Allen, assistant professor of public health sciences at the College of Medicine, who presented about other addictive substance use among adults enrolled in a tobacco quit line text messaging service; Tammy Corr, associate professor of pediatrics at the College of Medicine, who talked about the academic achievement in children with a history of neonatal abstinence syndrome; and Madison Kelm, doctoral candidate in psychology, who discussed the unpredictability of prenatal substance exposure: implications for infant negative affect.
The conference featured a poster session during the lunch break. Joshua Fansler, doctoral candidate in health policy and administration; Sujeong Park assistant professor of health policy and addiction studies at Penn State Harrisburg and SSRI co-funded faculty member; and Makenna Luzenski, incoming doctoral student in development psychology and research study coordinator at Penn State, received the honor of "Best Poster" at the conference.
The afternoon session featured a presentation about lived experiences with addiction from Eric Harrison, a doctoral student in human development and family studies.
The last panel session featured Kristina Brant, assistant professor of rural sociology and Social Science Research Institute co-funded faculty member; Halie Kampman, postdoctoral scholar of geography; Glenn Sterner, associate professor of criminal justice and SSRI co-funded faculty member at Penn State Abington; Dennis Scanlon, distinguished professor of health policy and administration and director of the Center for Healthcare and Policy Research; and Jonathan Larsen, legal technology manager at the Beasley School of Law Center for Public Health Research at Temple University, in a discussion about how they were working with localities across Pennsylvania to collect data about how they planned to spend the opioid settlement dollars.
Lastly, the conference closed with remarks from CSUA director, Joel Segel, SSRI affiliate and professor of health policy administration.
The livestream is available on SSRI’s YouTube channel. There is also a gallery of photos from the event on SSRI's website. For more information about CSUA, please visit CSUA’s website.
The CSUA, part of the Social Science Research Institute, draws on the expertise of researchers, educators and practitioners from across Penn State to develop and implement effective programs, policies and practices aimed at preventing and treating addiction and its spillover effects on children, families and communities.