Addictions CAG prize winners announced

The leader of the King’s Health Partners (KHP) Addictions Clinical Academic Group has praised the “breadth of substance and depth of science” in the submitted papers for its Early Career Research Prize.

After the 2022 winners were announced, Prof Sir John Strang, Director of the National Addiction Centre at King's College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), reflected on another impressive year.

He said:

It is exciting to see the strong scientific contributions which have comprised the applications for our Addictions CAG Research Prize. We have run this annual competition over the last six years, in consultation with clinical partners, with focus on the impact significance of the paper (and on the special contribution of the ECR).

It is particularly gratifying to see the breadth of substance and depth of science captured in the submitted papers, across tobacco, heroin, alcohol and cannabis, and utilising methods from qualitative interviews to public health.

It is super to be able to celebrate these interesting contributions from early career researchers (ECR) within our group, and we look forward also to the continuing impacts in the years ahead.

Gold

The Gold Prize was awarded to Dr Katie East, Research Fellow at the IoPPN, for her paper evaluating the outcome of the menthol cigarette ban in England, published in JAMA Network Open in 2022. Katie is a Society for the Study of Addiction (SSA) Griffith Edwards Academic Fellow working on projects relating to nicotine and tobacco product perceptions and use, with a focus on youths and young adults.

Katie’s Fellowship also involves collaborations with the Department of Biostatistics and Heath Informatics, University of Waterloo’s School of Public Health Sciences (Canada), and University of Bristol’s MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit (IEU).

Silver

The Silver Prize was awarded to Dr Basak Tas, Research Fellow at the IoPPN, for her paper on the overlooked respiratory health problems among patients with opioid use disorder, published in Drug & Alcohol Dependence in 2022. Basak’s Fellowship includes her work on development of wearable sensors to detect and respond to opioid overdose.

Bronze

This year, with such a strong field of applications, three equal-scoring Bronze Prize winners were announced. Alice Bowen, Research Assistant at the IoPPN, was awarded a Bronze Prize for her paper exploring uptake and engagement with a smartphone recovery app, published in JMIR Human Factors in 2022.

Eileen Brobbin, Research Assistant at the IoPPN was awarded a Bronze Prize for her paper on wearable transdermal alcohol sensors, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research in 2022.

Dr Will Lawn, Lecturer in Psychology at the IoPPN, was awarded a Bronze Prize for his papers on cannabis use in adolescents and the CanTeen study, including publications in Journal of Psychopharmacology in 2022.

Adjudication

All applications for the Prize underwent an internal independent review, across the clinical academic CAG partnership, with each being scored on (i) quality of science, (ii) relevance to Addictions & healthcare, and (iii) academic ownership. On the basis of cumulative scores, a Gold Award, a Silver Award and a Bronze Award is announced.

The Addictions CAG at KHP covers illicit drugs, alcohol, tobacco and behavioural addictions and includes close partnership between one of Europe’s leading research centres in the addictions field with one of the largest providers of NHS addictions services in the UK.

Visit the Addictions CAG webpage here to learn more about its work.