Plenaries
AHSR 2026 will showcase five plenary sessions featuring leading voices in addiction health services research. Covering topics from opioid prescribing to emerging opportunities and challenges in the field, these presentations will provide valuable insights and spark meaningful discussion. Learn more about each plenary below.
- Stefan G. Kertesz, MD, MSc
Irrational Exuberance, Ethical Failure: Lessons from Our Prescription Opioid Story
This talk will offer a retelling of the US opioid story in which both the rise and fall of opioid prescribing embodied leaps of logic, blame-shifting, clinical ignorance, and failures to listen not just to evidence but to patients and their families. It will conclude by approaching the matter of suicide among some patients with pain, and show how we can do better for these patients.
Stefan G. Kertesz, MD, MSc is an investigator and physician at the Birmingham VA Health Care System (BVAHCS), and Professor of Medicine at the Heersink School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Dr. Kertesz’s work focuses on health care delivery for populations at high risk of receiving poor care in mainstream health care systems. He began his career as a primary care doctor for homeless individuals at the Boston Health Care for the Homeless program, and at present leads the Homeless Patient-Aligned Care Team at the Birmingham VA.
He also has led in advocacy focused on the care of patients with pain, disability and a history of long-term opioid receipt. His research has included studies focused on pain, addiction, homelessness and suicide. He cohosts the podcast "On Becoming a Healer".
- Carlos Blanco, M.D., Ph.D. and Laura E. Kwako, Ph.D.
Opportunities and Challenges in Addiction Health Services Research
This presentation will provide an overview of recent advances and current research funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) in addiction-focused health services. It will highlight major gaps in the field, emerging funding priorities, and how these align with current National Institutes of Health (NIH) goals and priority areas. Topics will include updated statistics on the burden of substance use disorders in the United States, the implementation of integrated care models to improve care delivery and increase treatment engagement, and strategies for sustaining effective interventions within the U.S. healthcare system.
Dr. Carlos Blanco is the Director of the Division of Epidemiology, Services and Prevention Research. He has authored or co-authored over 450 publications. He is a practicing clinical psychiatrist and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Dr. Laura Kwako is acting director of the Division of Treatment and Recovery (DTR) at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. This division oversees a scientific research portfolio encompassing grants on behavioral and pharmacological treatments for Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), increasing their use in real-world settings, and understanding the process of recovery for individuals overcoming AUD. Dr. Kwako is credentialed at the NIH Clinical Research Center as a clinical psychologist and conducts weekly group therapy at NIAAA’s inpatient behavioral health treatment program for AUD.
- Bradley D. Stein, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D.
Peering into a crystal ball: Pressing future policy issues for substance use disorder prevention and treatment
Substance use disorder policy is entering a period of unusually rapid change, shaped by an evolving overdose crisis, new treatment technologies, shifting financing and delivery systems, growing attention to prevention, and uncertain support for research examining these issues. This keynote looks ahead to the policy questions likely to define the next phase of substance use disorder prevention and treatment. It will consider what health-services research can contribute to decisions about access, quality, equity, workforce capacity, data infrastructure, and the integration of substance use care across health and social-service systems. The goal is not to predict the future, but to identify some of the choices and challenges likely to shape it.
Bradley D. Stein, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D. (he/him), is director of the NIH-funded RAND-USC Schaeffer Opioid Policy, Tools, and Information Center of Research Excellence (OPTIC), Rollins Distinguished Professor in the Department of Health Policy Management at Emory University, and an adjunct senior physician policy researcher at RAND. A practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist, health services and policy researcher, and clinician with extensive experience treating individuals with substance use disorders, Dr. Stein focuses on understanding and improving the quality of mental health and substance use disorder care in community settings.
Dr. Stein has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on more than 12 federally and privately funded studies related to the opioid crisis. His research has examined the effects of state policies and community characteristics on opioid-related treatment, prevention, and harm-reduction outcomes; treatment for opioid use disorder; opioid analgesic prescribing; and the effects of state and federal policy. He has published dozens of peer-reviewed articles on these topics in journals including JAMA, Health Affairs, The Milbank Quarterly, and Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
His broader research includes school mental health, including the development, evaluation, implementation, and dissemination of school-based interventions for students exposed to trauma and violence and school-based suicide intervention programs. He has also studied mental health and substance use care among diverse Medicaid populations, including people with depression, children with ADHD or autism, and children receiving psychotropic medications. Previously, Dr. Stein served as senior director of Research, Evaluation, and Outcomes at Community Care Behavioral Health, a large nonprofit managed behavioral health organization. He received his M.D. (1995) and M.P.H. (1997) from the University of Pittsburgh and his Ph.D. in health policy (2002) from the Pardee RAND Graduate School.
- Michelle Debbink, MD, PhD; Jenna Murray, MPH; Susanna R. Cohen, DNP, CNM/ MSN; Melissa H. Watt, PhD; and Erin P. Johnson, PhD
ELEVATE Center: Community engaged practices to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality from substance use disorder
One of 10 NIH-funded IMPROVE Centers for Maternal Health Excellence, the University of Utah ELEVATE Center seeks to reduce pregnancy-associated and pregnancy-related deaths from substance use disorder (SUD) by developing evidence-based, research driven interventions that are scalable across Utah, the Intermountain West, and ultimately, nationally. The ELEVATE Center intentionally focuses on addressing populations facing inequitable care, and works in tandem with partners from rural and Indigenous communities to develop clinical approaches and research methodologies. Presenters will focus on the unique integration of community-engaged, culturally-responsive SUD research with Implementation Science methodologies in the ELEVATE Center’s CEREMONY, INSPIRE, and [MEMORIES projects.] The CEREMONY project seeks to develop an integrated perinatal substance use care program in deep partnership with Sacred Circle Healthcare and the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation. The INSPIRE project seeks to develop a simulation forward training program to increase trauma-informed compassionate care on labor and delivery for pregnant people with SUD. The ELEVATE Center further promotes the sustainability of SUD research through training, community outreach, and education.
- A. Taylor Kelley, MD, MPH, MS; Rick Hendy, LCSW; Ernest Harry Begay; Racheal Holiday, MPH, MSW; and Priscilla Blosser, RN, BSN
From Community-Engaged to Community-Led: Rethinking Tribal-Academic Research Partnerships
The Utah Navajo Health System (UNHS) and the University of Utah (UU) have partnered in behavioral health research for nearly a decade. That partnership has evolved over time and, most recently, has sought to establish a community-led research program within UNHS. With support from the National Institutes of Health Helping to End Addiction Long-Term (HEAL) Initiative, UNHS/UU have developed a model of community-engaged research that enhances research relevance and quality by empowering the community to better incorporate language, culture, customs, and preferences in research practice and design. This session will discuss our approach, lessons learned, and preliminary project results.