Encouraging news can be found all around us, even in the midst of discouraging times. There will always be problems in the world, and fortunately there will always be people to fight against those problems. Sometimes we will read of victory and sometimes we will read of defeat. In the War on Drugs, there are people who study and analyze the problems so that we can get a better handle on the causes, effects, and best strategies to help the humans who get caught in this ugly spider’s web.
Here at Brown University in Providence, there is a new member who has just joined the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies. Dr. Kate B. Carey plans to bring an active research program to the group. She is also a Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences in the Program in Public Health. She has been a Senior Scientist, a Professor of Psychology, and a Dean’s Professor of the Sciences. She has also mentored numerous PhD students in this field.
Dr. Carey enjoys putting together studies that evaluate alcohol abuse prevention and testing ideas and programs to see which seem to bring about the best results. One of the current projects tests whether a motivational meeting brings about the desired good results in addicted individuals. At-risk students from the University of Connecticut at Storrs will be the participants in the study.
Along with her husband and colleague, Michael Carey, they plan to research the impact of alcohol use on participants with HIV. The data for this study will come from young adult drinkers in South Africa.
If you think about it, just about every program that exists today was a test program at some point in time. Some may have failed miserably, while others became so successful that other communities and states sent people over to copy them. Drug Court, for instance, started in one city and has been successfully used elsewhere, with more communities copying the plan each year.
Brown University welcomed Dr. Carey and hopes that in the near future there will be announcements showing that her efforts enhanced the current efforts of the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies.
