Welcome

The Vermont Center on Behavior and Health (VCBH), led by Director Stephen T. Higgins, PhD, is an interdisciplinary research center committed to investigating relationships between personal behavior patterns (i.e., lifestyle) and risk for chronic disease and premature death. Our work has historically focused on health disparities for the most vulnerable populations, particularly among the socioeconomically disadvantaged where these risk factors are overrepresented.

 

VCBH logo

Located in Burlington, VT at the University of Vermont, Larner College of Medicine, VCBH researchers have a specific focus on understanding mechanisms underpinning risk and developing effective interventions and policies to promote healthy behavior. A common thread across VCBH research projects is the application of knowledge from the disciplines of behavioral economics and behavioral pharmacology to increase understanding of vulnerability to unhealthy behavior and the use of incentives and other behavioral and pharmacological interventions to support healthy behavior change interventions and policies.

Stay Connected with VCBH

Join our mailing list to get the latest
on news and events.

Follow us on our social media channels

Twitter icon circle Facebook icon circle LinkedIn icon YouTube Icon

Upcoming VCBH Events

Monthly Lecture Series:

November 20:
Joseph McClernon, PhD
Duke University

December 18:
Hugh Garavan, PhD
University of Vermont

Visit the Center on Rural Addiction

CORA_transparents

 


VCBH Career Opportunities

Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Click here for more information.

VCBH News

Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Finds Improvement for Those Receiving Medication for Opioid Use Disorder When Contingency Management Used

August 5, 2021 by Nicole Twohig

A systematic review and meta-analysis of “Contingency Management for Patients Receiving Medication for Opioid Use Disorder” and accompanying podcast appear today in JAMA Psychiatry. Led by the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health (VCBH) at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine, the podcast features VCBH Director Stephen T. Higgins, PhD discussing the examination, completed by first author Hypatia Bolívar, PhD and the VCBH team, of the utility of the behavioral intervention contingency management (CM) for addressing key clinical problems common among patients enrolled in MOUD.

The opioid epidemic remains a US public health crisis and has only worsened since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. Provisional drug overdose data released from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July 2021, indicate that more than 93,000 people died from overdoses, with opioids accounting for more than 69,000 of those deaths. Opioid use disorder (OUD) contributes to an overall decrease in mean life expectancy in the US and has an economic cost of more than $786 billion annually. OUD is often accompanied by other substance use and barriers to treatment adherence. Medication for OUD (MOUD) has been transformative in mitigating many of the terrible impacts of the U.S. opioid crisis. However, MOUD is ineffective at reducing the growing epidemic of psychomotor stimulant use (cocaine, methamphetamine). Use of psychomotor stimulants is a major driver behind the dramatically increasing U.S. overdose rates, often related to the drugs being cut with black market synthetic opioids (fentanyl). Importantly, psychostimulant use destabilizes the therapeutic gains from MOUD by promoting a return to illicit-opioid use and disrupting clinic attendance and adherence with prescribed medication regimens. 

A systematic review and meta-analysis of “Contingency Management for Patients Receiving Medication for Opioid Use Disorder” and accompanying podcast appear today in JAMA Psychiatry. Led by the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health (VCBH) at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine, the podcast features VCBH Director Stephen T. Higgins, PhD discussing the examination, completed by first author Hypatia Bolívar, PhD and the VCBH team, of the utility of the behavioral intervention contingency management (CM) for addressing key clinical problems common among patients enrolled in MOUD. Additional VCBH collaborators include Elias M. Klemperer, PhD, Sulamunn R.M. Coleman, PhD, Michael DeSarno, MS, and Joan Skelly, MS.

These investigators searched the scientific literature for prospective experimental studies of monetary-based CM among participants enrolled in MOUD. The search identified 1,443 studies, of which 74 studies involving 10,444 adult participants met inclusion criteria. The primary outcome in this review was the effect of CM at end-of-treatment on six common clinical problems during MOUD: psychomotor stimulant use, polysubstance use, illicit-opioid use, cigarette smoking, therapy attendance, and medication adherence. Statical models were used to compute average treatment effect sizes of CM for each clinical problem and collapsing across problem categories to assess efficacy for increasing abstinence from illicit drug use and improving treatment adherence.

CM was efficacious across all six problems examined separately, with mean effect sizes for four of six in the medium-large range (stimulant use, d = 0.70 [95% CI: 0.49-0.92]; cigarette use, d = 0.78 [95% CI: 0.43-1.14]; illicit-opioid use, d = 0.58 [95% CI: 0.30-0.86]; medication adherence, d = 0.75 [95% CI: 0.30-1.21]), and two in the small-medium range (polysubstance use, d = 0.46 [95% CI: 0.30-0.62]; therapy attendance, d = 0.43 [95% CI: 0.22-0.65]). Collapsing across abstinence and adherence categories, CM produced medium effect sizes for abstinence (Cohen’s d = 0.58; 95% CI: 0.47-0.69) and treatment adherence (Cohen’s d = 0.62; 95% CI: 0.40 – 0.84) relative to controls.

“It is Important to underscore that CM is the only intervention shown in randomized clinical trials to be efficacious for treatment of psychomotor stimulant use disorder in more than 30 years of research.,” said Higgins.

These results provide compelling evidence supporting the efficacy of CM in addressing key clinical problems among patients receiving MOUD, including the ongoing epidemic of psychomotor stimulant use and addiction. Policies facilitating a prompt integration of CM into community MOUD services are sorely needed. Indeed, doing so is a one of seven priorities underscored in the Biden-Harris Administration’s Statement of Drug Policy Priorities For Year One (PDF) released by the Office of National Drug Control Policy earlier this year.

###

This study received support from the National Institutes of Health awards No. P20GM103644 and T32DA07242