VCBH Presents Preventive Medicine’s Tenth Special Issue, November 2023

February 2, 2024 by Shannon O’Connor

The November 2023 Special Issue of Preventive Medicine is now available. As a part of the Behavior Series, this Special Issue centers on behavior change, health, and health disparities. VCBH Director Stephen Higgins, PhD acted as guest editor and organized the selection of papers.

VCBH Director Stephen Higgins, PhD is guest editor of the November 2023 Special Issue of Preventive Medicine

The November 2023 Special Issue of Preventive Medicine is now available. As a part of the Behavior Series, this Special Issue centers on behavior change, health, and health disparities. VCBH Director Stephen Higgins, PhD acted as guest editor and organized the selection of papers.

The issue, “Behavior change, health, and health disparities 2023: Contingency management for treating substance use disorders and promoting health in vulnerable populations,” includes work from VCBH researchers and annual conference presenters focused on contingency management in the treatment of tobacco, alcohol and opioid use disorders.

“This issue focuses on Contingency Management (CM), a highly efficacious behavior-change intervention for substance use disorders (SUDs) and other behavioral health conditions wherein patients receive material incentives […] contingent on objectively verified behavior change,” says Dr. Higgins in his introduction to the Special Issue. “Despite substantial support for its efficacy, CM remains largely unavailable in U.S. community SUD treatment facilities and other healthcare settings. […] This SI details recent promising developments in efforts to surmount longstanding implementation obstacles while also detailing other promising advances from meta-analyses and controlled trials examining CM's efficacy”.

The Special Issue is available online through Science Direct here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/preventive-medicine/vol/176/suppl/C