Pre-Addiction: Research Needed to Evaluate its Public Health Value Webinar Materials

The majority of available treatments for substance use disorders (SUDs) are designed for the most severely affected: those suffering from addiction. This situation promotes resistance to treatment entry and ignores the millions of individuals with early stage, lower severity, but still problematic, substance misuse. The treatment of type 2 diabetes experienced similar problems, but that field designed a comprehensive strategy to recognize and address early-stage illness, termed “pre-diabetes.” This presentation explored whether a similar strategy applied in the SUD field might have beneficial effects.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the public and clinical health consequences of withholding interventions and treatments for only those with the most serious, chronic cases of illness
• Be able to consider ideas for new research or broader application of existing research that could have the potential to improve earlier detection of SUD and provide more engaging, effective, early interventions

Presenter:
A. Thomas McLellan, PhD