title: Understanding Drug Use Over the Life Course: Past, Present, and Future.
abstract: Over the past 20 years, much exciting addiction research has been conducted. Extensive knowledge has been gathered about comorbid issues, particularly mental health disorders, HIV, and criminal justice involvement. Health services addiction research has become increasingly sophisticated, shifting its focus from patients to consider also services, organizations, and financing structures. Furthermore, through several long-term follow-up studies, empirical evidence convincingly demonstrates that drug dependence is not an acute disorder, and is best understood through a life course perspective with an emphasis on chronicity This article highlights three major directions for future addiction research: developing strategies for chronic care (including longitudinal intervention studies), furthering cross-system linkage and coordination, and utilizing innovative methods (e.g., growth curve modeling, longitudinal mixed methods research) to strengthen the evidence base for the life course perspective on drug addiction.
authors.affiliation: Yih-Ing Hser, Ph.D., is Professor-in-residence in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. She specializes in drug abuse treatment process and outcome evaluation, health services research, and quantitative methods particularly regarding longitudinal research.
authors.forename: Yih-Ing
authors.initials: YI
authors.lastname: Hser
authors.forename: Alison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hamilton
authors.forename: Noosha
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Niv