Understanding and Advancing NIH-Funded Prevention Research in Humans: The Case of Substance Use Prevention

Substance abuse is one of the leading preventable causes of death in the U.S. In 2015, over 27 million people used illicit drugs, nearly 64 million people used harmful tobacco products, and almost 67 million people reported excessive alcohol use. The Office of Disease Prevention (ODP) is the lead office within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) responsible for assessing, facilitating, and stimulating prevention research and disseminating the results of this research to improve the nation’s health. For purposes of reporting and program planning, the ODP developed a taxonomy for prevention research to systematically identify and characterize prevention research at the NIH. Using the ODP’s definition of prevention research with a refined conceptualization from the field of substance abuse prevention, the taxonomy was tested on NIH-funded substance use prevention grants. Specifically, the classification system was used to code NIH R01, R34, R21 and R03 substance use prevention projects funded between fiscal years 2012 and 2016 along multiple dimensions, including type of substance use, population studied, study design, and type of prevention (e.g., universal, selective, indicated, secondary, tertiary). A goal of the taxonomy is to inform an automated coding system using machine learning to monitor the NIH prevention research portfolio, and identify areas that may benefit from targeted investments by NIH Institutes and Centers. The purpose of this Roundtable is to discuss this new process for characterizing prevention research at NIH. Participants will learn about the breadth and depth of substance use research that is captured by the taxonomy, have an opportunity to discuss how it aligns with the conceptualization of prevention research within the field, and provide feedback on the utility of the taxonomy. Discussants will include program staff from the NIH Office of Disease Prevention, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and extramural researchers in the substance use prevention field. Information from this discussion will be useful for further development of a system for identifying and characterizing NIH-supported prevention research.