Michael Mason, Betsey R. Bush Endowed Professor in Children and Families at Risk, and his staff conduct exciting research in adolescent and young adult substance use prevention and treatment, social and environmental risk factors, and using mobile technology to address public health. They study the intersection of peer networks and environmental settings and how these factors contribute to healthy and risky behaviors.
This year Dr. Mason and his staff have conducted multiple studies on preventing and treating substance use disorders using text-delivered counseling programs. Recently they completed a randomized clinical trial on UT’s campus with 100 young adults with cannabis use disorder and found that the texting program was effective in reducing cannabis use and related interpersonal and academic problems. Results from this trial were used for a grant application to the National Institute on Drug Abuse that will test this intervention with 1000 young adults from UT and Colorado State University. Currently the team is completing a study on reducing adolescent risk for opioid misuse targeting adolescents and parents with a text-delivered intervention. Dr. Mason also is a co-investigator on an NIH study called the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. This is the largest (11,000 adolescents) study of its kind that seeks to understand to what extent drug use changes the adolescent brain.
In the course of the past year, Dr. Mason published seven papers in conjunction with CSW students and colleagues. Most recently, The Accuracy of Young Adult Cannabis Users’ Perceptions of Friends’ Cannabis and Alcohol Use, was published in Addictive Behaviors. Co-authors were PhD alum Matthew Moore and PhD student Aaron Brown.
Dr. Mason has recently been confirmed by National Institute of Health Director Francis Collins to join an NIH chartered review group of the Center for Scientific Review: Community Influences on Health Behavior. In addition he will be chairing the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Prevention Research, an interdisciplinary society dedicated to advancing scientific investigation on the etiology and prevention of social, physical and mental health, and academic problems and on the translation of that information to promote health and well being.