Contact: Alan Feingold, 541-485-2711
Eugene, Oregon – As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Alan Feingold, a research scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center who has a Ph.D. in psychology from Yale University, was awarded a prestigious Challenge Grant totaling just under $1 million from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) to examine the associations between women’s substance use and their violence towards their romantic partners and implications of these relationships for treatment and research. This study will extend the work that has already been published regarding men’s substance use and domestic violence. This two-year grant will support the collection and analysis of additional data from participants in the Oregon Youth Study Couples’ project, which recruited boys from Eugene-Springfield 4th grade classrooms in 1985 who have participated in assessments with their romantic partners since 1991.
The proposed work will employ both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses to examine the effects of substance use and dependence on perpetration of intimate partner violence (IPV). Diagnostic data and substance use problems will be assessed for the romantic partners of the OYS men that had previously been obtained only for the men in the study. Nicotine, alcohol, cannabis, amphetamines, hallucinogens, cocaine, opiates and sedatives will each be studied to determine levels of dependence and use. Over the course of the study, the association between substance use and IPV will be examined for each substance separately, as will any potential increased risk associated with dependence on multiple substances. The severity of substance dependence and its impact on IPV will also be studied. Furthermore, changes in substance use over time will be analyzed to see how they relate to changes in IPV. Findings from the project will eventually be used to inform and develop more effective treatment programs and interventions to mitigate the effects of IPV and substance use.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a division of the National Institutes of Health, is located in Baltimore, MD, and was officially formed in 1974. NIDA’s mission is “to lead the Nation in bringing the power of science to bear on drug abuse and addiction. In this regard, NIDA addresses the most fundamental and essential questions about drug abuse—from detecting and responding to emerging drug abuse trends and understanding how drugs work in the brain and body to developing and testing new approaches to treatment and prevention. NIDA also supports research training, career development, public education, and research dissemination efforts.”
The Oregon Social Learning Center is an independent non-profit research organization located in Eugene, Oregon. The organization began in 1977 and currently employs 200 employees, with an approximate annual budget of $10 million.