New program for substance abuse scientists

New program to train substance abuse scientists

UF has received a $1.5 million, five-year training grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to train new public health substance abuse researchers. The UF Substance Abuse Training Center in Public Health will support four doctoral students and two postdoctoral fellows a year. The program will focus on the epidemiology and prevention of substance use and its consequences, with an emphasis on social determinants of health, health inequalities and behavioral interventions to reduce substance use and its consequences. 

“There are increased health disparities related to the harmful consequences of drug use and a significant shortage of scientists in the drug abuse field,” said Linda B. Cottler, Ph.D., M.P.H., the grant’s lead investigator and dean’s professor and chair of the department of epidemiology at the College of Public Health and Health Professions and the College of Medicine. “We have a strong academic and research environment at UF, which is ripe for producing public health-oriented scientists. We also have an enthusiastic group of mentors who have an excellent track record to train nationally and internationally prominent substance abuse researchers.”