UW-CTRI 18 Month Research Report.

University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention (UW-CTRI) has compiled a summary of their research productivity. Please find an extended research report, reflecting the productivity of UW-CTRI scientists over 18 months of the “COVID Period” here.

The report describes publications, presentations, grants and financials.  During these 18 months, UW-CTRI had 63 articles and chapters accepted for publication. In addition, each year they typically highlight an article or two of particular interest that individuals may have been missed.  These two articles are:

1.     Smoking Treatment: A Report Card on Progress and Challenges by Baker and McCarthy published this year in the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology.

You can access this article via the following e-print URL: http://www.annualreviews.org/eprint/EX25SYJDCBR7RXYNTGMM/full/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-081219-090343

In this article, the authors evaluate the reach and effectiveness of pharmacotherapy and psychosocial interventions for smoking with an emphasis on the latter.  They argue in the abstract that:

“…new approaches are needed to advance psychosocial interventions; that progress has stagnated because research and dissemination efforts have focused too narrowly on skill training despite evidence that its core content may be inconsequential and the fact that its mechanisms are either unknown or inconsistent with supporting theory. Identifying effective psychosocial content and its mechanisms of action could greatly enhance the effectiveness of counseling, digital, and web interventions.”

2.     Barriers to Building More Effective Treatments: Negative Interactions Among Smoking-Intervention Components by Baker, Bolt, and Smith published this year in Clinical Psychological Science (article is located here).

As described in the abstract, the authors argue that:

“Across three factorial experiments, inferential tests in prior studies showed a pattern of negative interactions, suggesting that better clinical outcomes may be obtained when participants receive fewer rather than more intervention components.”

We hope you enjoy this summary of their recent work. You can also find all research articles featured in Connections in the past years located in the NAQC Newsroom.