Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute > Our Work: Research & Other Projects

Our Work: Research & Other Projects

The Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute (ADAI) has a 45+ year history of conducting multidisciplinary research that informs clinical practice and policy, in order to improve the lives of individuals, families, and communities affected by alcohol and drug use and addiction.

Hundreds of projects funded by federal, state, local and private organizations have been conducted by researchers with training in clinical and social psychology, public health, epidemiology, and implementation science, and other disciplines. ADAI’s research funding is about $5,000,000 annually.

ADAI also funds a Small Grants Program, awarding more than $5,500,000 to researchers from 40+ departments at the University of Washington since 1973. Learn more about the Small Grants program here.

About Our Work

Special Projects/Divisions

ADAI Clearinghouse
The ADAI Clearinghouse is a resource center serving the residents of Washington state. We provide free materials from SAMHSA, NIDA, NIAAA, the Washington Department of Health and other federal, state, and community agencies, as well as materials produced by the Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute.

Cannabis Research & Education:
ADAI has been the recipient of the Washington State Dedicated Marijuana Fund for research at the University of Washington since 2015. This page presents some of the activities and products developed by ADAI with support from those and other funds and leadership from director Beatriz Carlini, PhD, MPH.

Center for Advancing Addiction Health Services (CAAHS): Led by Bryan Hartzler, PhD, this center works to accelerate the adoption and implementation of useful treatment and recovery practices by health organizations that serve persons with substance use disorders. It includes the Northwest ATTC, the Opioid Response Network, sponsored programs, and health services research.

Center for Community-Engaged Drug Education, Epidemiology, and Research (CEDEER): Led by Caleb Banta-Green, PhD, MPH, MSW, this center offers offers education and technical assistance for individuals, professionals, and communities in Washington State who want to learn how to prevent and intervene in opioid addiction and overdose. CEDEER also manages our Opioid/Major Drug Interactive Data webpages, offers a series of interactive data charts and maps featuring Washington state data related to overdose deaths, statewide opioid sales, and police evidence testing data for opioids and other drugs. In addition, this team manages the websites focused on opioid and stimulant overdose, treatment, and harm reduction: StopOverdose.org and LearnAboutTreatment.org.

Center for Novel Therapeutics in Addiction Psychiatry: Led by Nathan Sackett, MD, MS, NTAP aims to create powerful new ways of treating people struggling with alcohol, opioid, tobacco and other addictions by combining psychedelic compounds with evidence-based behavioral interventions.

NIDA Clinical Trials Network, Pacific Northwest Node: The Pacific Northwest Node joined the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Clinical Trials Network in 2001, and is a collaboration among researchers at ADAI and WSU, and affiliated community partners in Washington and Alaska. ADAI also houses the CTN Dissemination Library, a digital library of materials (journal articles, reports, presentations, posters, webinars, more) by and about the CTN.

Empathy Lens Collection: Developed by Meg Brunner, MLIS, and Erinn McGraw, BFA, of ADAI’s Information Services Team, Empathy Lens offers free photographs related to drug and alcohol use, prevention, treatment, recovery, and harm reduction with a goal of helping to reduce stigma against people who use drugs and the services available to support them by encouraging the use of realistic, humanizing imagery in education, media, and other forms of information dissemination.

Fetal Alcohol & Drug Unit (FADU): Led by Susan A. Stoner, PhD, FADU is a research unit dedicated since 1973 to the goals of studying fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) across the lifespan.

Parent-Child Assistance Program (PCAP): Part of FADU, this is an award winning, evidence‐informed home visitation case‐management model for pregnant and parenting women with substance use disorders. PCAP goals are to help mothers build healthy families and prevent future births of children exposed prenatally to alcohol and drugs.