For immediate release: Nov. 1, 2012
Contact: Susan G. Hill, APR
Director, Marketing and Communications
Office 775-784-6006
Mobile 775-338-7918
susanhill@medicine.nevada.edu

University of Nevada Center for the Application of Substance Abuse Technologies receives grant for new alcohol abuse screening

RENO, Nev.— The Center for the Application of Substance Abuse Technologies (CASAT), a unit of the University of Nevada Division of Health Sciences, is on the forefront of early detection of alcohol abuse, ranked as one of the nation’s leading causes of chronic disease and mortality. CASAT recently received additional help in its mission through a $384,760 two-year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The grant funds a new alcohol screening and brief intervention (SBI) program at four University of Nevada School of Medicine clinics statewide.

Screen-All is a CASAT-developed project to implement SBI in primary care settings. It supplements the Frontier Regional Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) Training Center, which is housed at CASAT. The Frontier Regional FASD Training Center is one of five Regional Training Centers, and Screen-All is one of three SBI projects funded by the CDC nationwide.

The Screen-All project focuses on training clinic staff to use SBI with their patients to decrease risky drinking. Special emphasis will be placed on conducting SBI with women of childbearing age in order to prevent FASDs. The overall goal of the project is to develop, implement and evaluate a targeted approach to integrating alcohol SBI with all adult female and male patients receiving health care services.

This goal is in keeping with the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s recommendation that “all adult patients in a primary care setting be screened for alcohol misuse and provided counseling for identified risky or harmful drinking.” (U.S. Prevention Services Task Force, 2004)

“CASAT is excited about the opportunity to work with four of the University of Nevada School of Medicine’s primary care clinics, including the Family Medicine Center, Student Outreach Clinic and Student Health Center in Reno and the Women’s Healthcare Center in Las Vegas,” said Nancy A. Roget, executive director of CASAT. “By providing state-of-the-art training and education for clinic staff, as well as University of Nevada medical and nursing students, we are confident that the lessons learned from this project will help clinics everywhere adopt SBI as a routine primary care service,” she added.

The University of Nevada School of Medicine, a research-intensive, community-based, statewide medical school, has served Nevada for more than 40 years as its only public medical school. Our mission is improving the health of Nevada’s diverse population through world-class biomedical research, an innovative curriculum integrating basic and clinical sciences, and highly competitive residency and fellowship programs that complement a statewide network of urban and rural clinical facilities. Through targeted growth and investment in research, clinical services and education, we are a resource for improving health care regionally and across the country.