Workshops
For the first time ever, AHSR 2026 will feature 16 workshops integrated throughout the entire conference rather than offered as pre-conference sessions, giving attendees the opportunity to engage in a variety of hands-on learning experiences throughout #AHSR2026.
While you may not be able to attend all 16, now is the perfect time to start planning and highlight the workshops you don't want to miss!
Workshop 1
10:00-11:30 AM
OLYMPUS: NIH: Career Development
WYOMING: Conducting Economic Evaluations Alongside Substance Use Disorder Clinical Trials: Statistical Methods and Best Practices
TETON: Methods for understanding states of care in learning health systems: Improving healthcare decision making in substance use care
IDAHO: Framework for improving policy evaluations of the opioid crisis
ARIZONA: Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) via Community Boards to Improve Substance Use Health Services Research
SNOWBASIN: Nothing About Us Without Us: Leveraging Youth Participatory Action Research to Address Adolescent Substance Use and Overdose
Workshop 2
1:15-2:45 PM
OLYMPUS: Context Matters: Health Services Research in a Rapidly Changing Environment
WYOMING: Implementing staggered difference-in-differences in R
TETON: Adapting and personalizing interventions for substance use: Practical considerations and methodological innovations
IDAHO: Systems Thinking and Simulation Modeling for Addiction Policy and Treatment: From Fragmented Care to Integrated Solutions
ARIZONA: Under 25 Substance Use: Trends and Treatment
SNOWBASIN: Using Multi-state Medicaid Data in Substance Use Services Research: T-MSIS Analytic File (TAF) and beyond
Workshop 3
1:15-2:45 PM
OLYMPUS: USARA: Peer Support
WYOMING: Stakeholder Engagement and Tailored Dissemination: Increasing Impact through Meaningful Communication
TETON: Policy Dissemination & Implementation (D&I) Research
IDAHO: Community Engaged Substance Use Disorder Research: Guiding Principles & Lessons Learned from Tribal-Academic Partnerships
VENUE MAP
WORKSHOP DETAILS
- Duration: Each workshop will run for 90 minutes.
- Schedule: Workshops will be offered on Monday, October 5, 2026, from 10:00–11:30 AM MST and 1:15–2:45 PM MST, with an additional session scheduled for Wednesday, October 7, 2026, from 1:15–2:45 PM MST. A detailed workshop schedule will be released in mid-to-late August 2026.
- Workshops vs. Symposiums: Workshops are interactive, hands-on sessions designed to teach and engage participants. Symposiums are more presentation-focused, ideal for sharing research findings or project outcomes.
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS
NIH Grantsmanship
Speakers
- This workshop will feature speakers from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Speaker information will be announced soon.
There have been numerous changes in NIH policies and processes over the last several years – it’s a lot to keep up with. This workshop, designed for established as well as new investigators, will review the things you need to know to successfully compete for, and manage, an NIH grant in addiction health services research. Program officers will cover the basics of early career mechanisms (dissertation grants, fellowships, K awards); new and unusual mechanisms (NOSIs, phased awards); considerations for different funding pathways (NIDA/NIAAA, HEAL, HIV); and changes in pre- and post-award processes (data sharing plans; enrollment tracking; changes to review criteria). There will be ample time for Q&A to address attendees’ interests and priorities.
Implementing staggered difference-in-differences in R
Speakers
- Stephan Lindner, PhD, Oregon Health & Science University
- Kyle Hart, MS, Oregon Health & Science University
Staggered differences-in-differences refers to research designs where units are exposed to treatment at different times. Recent methodological advances have promoted the use of methods that allow estimating treatment effects specific to cohorts exposed to treatment at different times, and to time relative to treatment. These methods have become increasingly popular in health services research. However, implementation of these statistical methods is often complex.
This workshop has three objectives: to provide an overview of a regression approach for staggered differences-in-differences; to show how to implement these regressions in R using a popular approach developed by Callaway and Sant'Anna; and and to describe an alternative R package called staggR that our research team developed. The main feature of the staggR package is that it separates estimating difference-in-differences regressions from calculating policy estimates of interest, such as the average effect of an intervention. By explicitly separating these steps, our package simplifies the regression estimation approach and provides flexible functions to for post-regression calculations.
The Tribal-Academic Partnership: Principles for Success in Community Engaged Substance Use Disorder Research
Speakers
- A. Taylor Kelley, MD, MPH, MSc, University of Utah School of Medicine, VA Salt Lake City Health Care System
- Rick Hendy, LCSW, Utah Navajo Health System
- Racheal Holiday, MPH, MSW, Utah Navajo Health System
- Calandra Hollie, MPH, Utah Navajo Health System
- Lavern Joe, Utah Navajo Health System
American Indian, Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian (AI/AN/NH) people experience higher levels of substance use disorder (SUD)-related morbidity and mortality than any other race/ethnicity. Tribal-academic partnerships can synergize elements of evidence-based practice with culturally relevant aspects of care to improve engagement in SUD care and SUD treatment effectiveness. However, relationships between academic institutions and tribal communities today emerge from a complex past fraught with breaches of sovereignty, privacy, and trust. Divergence in language, culture, and geography likewise add to logistical and contextual challenges in building and sustaining successful partnerships. These complexities are especially evident in projects that pertain to SUD and research, where lack of trust and stigma remain dominant concerns.
This workshop will teach five principles described in the CBPR literature that foster success in a tribal-academic partnership for SUD research and support successful community-based participatory research more broadly: (1) cultural narrative, (2) cultural humility, (3) relational trust, (4) relational accountability (positive kinship), and (5) symbolic language. Our team, which is comprised of clinicians, traditional counselors, and patients from the Utah Navajo Health System, as well as faculty and staff from the University of Utah, will first present a case-based didactic to introduce these guiding principles using real examples from research and clinical collaborations, emphasizing how the principles impacted our partnership and success.
Participants will then join a skill-building activity through facilitator-led small groups paired with adapted real-life scenarios that can be addressed by one or more of the principles presented. Small groups will then have the opportunity to share insights gained during the breakout session with the larger group, engage in a large group discussion and debrief, and receive access to an online repository of related resources.
Methods for understanding states of care in learning health systems: Improving healthcare decision making in substance use care
Speakers
- Noa Krawczyk, PhD, Assistant Professor, Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy, Department of Population Health, New York University Grossman School of Medicine
- Joe Glass, PhD, MSW Senior Research Scientist at Chestnut Health Systems
- Ignacio Borquez Infante, MA, Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy, Department of Population Health, New York University Grossman School of Medicine
- Edwin Suey Wong, PhD Research Associate Professor, Health Systems and Population Health, Director of the PhD Program, Health Systems and Population Health; Core Investigator, Veterans Administration Puget Sound Health Care System; Affiliate Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
- Noorie Hyun, PhD, Associate Biostatistics Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, Affiliate Associate Professor, Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington
- Lindsey Zimmerman, PhD, Clinical and Community Psychologist, National Center for PTSD Dissemination and Training Division, Office of Mental Health, Veterans Health Administration. Co-Lead, Design & Modeling Section, Center for Dissemination and Implementation at Stanford Medicine
This workshop introduces participants to the use of state-based and simulation modeling methods for analyzing routinely collected SUD treatment data. First, we will provide an overview of the basic capabilities and use cases for innovative mathematical and statistical approaches to improving substance use service systems, including system dynamics modeling, multi-state models, and state-sequence analysis. Second, we will discuss the process of collaborating and communicating with health system leaders to effectively translate findings into actionable practices. Third, the workshop will draw on examples from funded grants and include an interactive component for participants to refine and align their research questions to each of the three methodologies. After this workshop participants will be able to describe how these approaches can be used to address research questions that are of mutual interest to health services researchers and healthcare decision makers.
Using Multi-state Medicaid Data in Substance Use Services Research: T-MSIS Analytic File (TAF) and beyond
Speakers
- Yuhua Bao, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine
- Shashi N. Kapadia, MD, Weill Cornell Medicine
- Jake R Morgan, PhD, Boston University School of Public Health
In this interactive workshop, we will discuss opportunities for conducting substance use services research using multi-state Medicaid (claims or encounter) data. Medicaid data include sources such as the T-MSIS Analytic File (TAF), datasets from commercial vendors (e.g., Merative Marketscan and Innovalon), and more. These data provide an important tool for substance use services and policy research in a critical population. However, unique data features and substantial variation across state Medicaid programs and data sources can present compounding challenges for effectively working with multi-state data to produce valid and impactful research. Our workshop builds on the extensive experience of the facilitator team in working with multi-state Medicaid data to provide practical lessons to the research community.
Nothing About Us Without Us: Leveraging Youth Participatory Action Research to Address Adolescent Substance Use and Overdose
Speakers
- Nicholas Szoko, MD, PhD
- Lauren Arnold Bell, MD, MPH
- Nicole Brewer
- Jaidah Langford
- Rose Yackey
Partnering with youth in intervention development, implementation, and dissemination inherently increases the likelihood that interventions will be acceptable and appropriate for youth. This workshop provides attendees with an understanding of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) as a critical way to engage adolescents and young adults as co-researchers in addressing a problem salient to youth, including strategies for establishing and conducting YPAR, highlights and pitfalls of one youth overdosefocused YPAR project, and practice through interactive activities.
Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) via Community Boards to Improve Substance Use Health Services Research
Speakers
- Tess K. Drazdowski, PhD
- Ashli J. Sheidow, PhD
- Tamika Zapolski, PhD, HSPP
- Martha Tillson, PhD
- Dennis Watson, PhD
Under-resourced populations, including emerging adults, minority youth, and individuals involved in the criminal legal system, are less likely to access substance use harm reduction, treatment, and benefit less from non-tailored programs. These same barriers also make engagement in health services research more challenging. Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) offers a framework for more inclusive, responsive approaches. Engaging Community Boards (also known as Community Advisory Boards [CABs]) comprising individuals with lived experience may be especially valuable, given the roles of stigma, criminalization, and prior harms in limiting trust. However, poorly implemented community-engaged approaches risk causing harm or undermining future engagement. In a Consortium of Addiction Recovery Science (CoARS) internal survey, early career scientists ranked CBPR methods as their highest learning priority.
This interactive workshop shares lessons learned from implementing CBPR using Community Boards across multiple initiatives. The goal is to support research teams in adopting more collaborative and equitable approaches. Content will include practical guidance on recruitment, onboarding, facilitation, dissemination, and sustaining partnerships, drawing on presenters’ experience conducting CBPR in complex, multi-site projects.
Systems Thinking and Simulation Modeling for Addiction Policy and Treatment: From Fragmented Care to Integrated Solutions
Speakers
- Mohammad Jalali (‘MJ’), PhD, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School/MGH; Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management
This interactive workshop introduces systems thinking and simulation modeling as complementary approaches for understanding and improving addiction policy and treatment systems. Drawing on examples from opioid use, participants will examine how outcomes such as treatment initiation and overdose emerge from interconnected feedback processes, including fragmented care pathways, policy responses, and inequitable access to services. The session will begin with an introduction to core systems thinking concepts, followed by a guided walkthrough of causal loop diagrams to identify and map key drivers of addiction-related outcomes. The workshop will then transition to simulation modeling, demonstrating how these system structures can be used to evaluate alternative policy and treatment strategies.
Planned activities include exercises and facilitated discussion to identify feedback mechanisms operating within participants’ own research and practice settings, interactive examples illustrating common policy challenges in addiction care, and a live demonstration of an online simulation dashboard. Participants will explore “what if” scenarios such as expanding treatment capacity, improving treatment retention, and scaling harm reduction strategies, while examining potential trade-offs and unintended consequences.
Stakeholder Engagement and Tailored Dissemination: Increasing Impact through Meaningful Communication
Speakers
- Jessica Hulsey, BA, Founder & Executive Director, Addiction Policy Forum; Co-I, JCOIN Coordination and Translation Center
- Braeden Kelly, MPH, BA, Managing Director of Initiatives, Addiction Policy Forum; Project Director, JCOIN Coordination and Translation Center
This interactive workshop will explore strategies for building and activating champion networks through meaningful engagement and bidirectional communication. Participants will learn about the Justice Community Overdose Innovation Network’s (JCOIN) champion model, lessons learned from implementation, and practical approaches for tailoring scientific information to diverse audiences. Through case studies and hands-on activities, participants will develop skills to identify, recruit, engage, and sustain champions while creating effective science translation and dissemination resources.
Policy Dissemination & Implementation (D&I) Research
Speakers
- Beth McGinty, PhD, Livingston Farrand Professor and Chief, Division of Health Policy and Economics, Weill Cornell Medical College. Founding Co-Director, Cornell Health Policy Center.
- Erika Crable, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).
- Jonathan Purtle, PhD, Associate Professor of Public Health Policy and Management, New York University. Director of Policy Research at NYU’s Global Center for Implementation Science.
- Sachini Bandara, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
- Noa Krawczyk, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Population Health, New York University Grossman School of Medicine.
This workshop will introduce participants to policy dissemination and implementation (D&I) research, which studies approaches to support adoption and implementation of evidence-based health policies. Policy D&I research draws upon but is distinct from traditional implementation science, public policy, or health services research. The workshop will be structured in three sections. First, an introduction to policy D&I research and its unique features. Second, an overview of policy D&I research designs, strategies, and outcomes. Third, concrete examples of grant-funded policy D&I projects.
Conducting Economic Evaluations Alongside Substance Use Disorder Clinical Trials: Statistical Methods and Best Practices
Speakers
- Sean M. Murphy, PhD, MA, Professor of Population Health Sciences; Co-director, CHERISH; Director, CLEAR, Department of Population Health Sciences, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
- Kathryn E. McCollister, PhD, Professor; Interim Chair, Department of Public Health Sciences; Director, Division of Health Services, Research and Policy; Director, CHERISH Methodology Core, Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL
- Ali Jalali, PhD, Assistant Professor of Population Health Sciences; Co-director CHERISH Methodology Core, Department of Population Health Sciences, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
This CHERISH and JCOIN CLEAR co-sponsored workshop will provide an in-depth review of methods for conducting an economic evaluation alongside clinical trials of SUD interventions, with a particular focus on criminal-legal settings. Statistical methods frequently employed in applied health econometric studies – including two-part and generalized linear models (GLMs), recycled predictions, mixed effects, and longitudinal analysis – will be covered alongside best practices for data collection and analysis, with applied examples using Stata statistical software. No prior experience with Stata is required.
The workshop is designed for investigators who have some familiarity with economic evaluations but would benefit from a more detailed outline of the methods involved and examples of their practical application.
Innovations in Methods for Adaptive and Personalizing Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Services for SUD
Speakers
- Inbal Billie Nahum-Shani, PhD, Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Research Professor at the Institute for Social Research, Director of the d3Center at the University of Michigan
- Susan A. Murphy, PhD, Professor in the Departments of Statistics and Computer Science at Harvard University, Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard
- Daniel Almirall, PhD, Associate Professor at the Institute for Social Research (ISR), Department of Statistics at the University of Michigan
- Linda M. Collins, PhD, Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, School of Global Public Health, New York University
Effective prevention, treatment, and recovery services for SUD demand an increasing array of evidence-based interventions to address individuals’ changing strengths, needs, and circumstances. This can be achieved via Adaptive Interventions, which explicitly guide how to modify the type/intensity of services based on information about the individual. Advances in digital technologies, such as mobile and wearable devices, have created unprecedented opportunities to adapt the delivery of services to the rapidly changing needs of individuals as they unfold in daily life. While rapid developments in technology bring highly novel opportunities for constructing effective adaptive interventions for SUDs, these adaptive interventions must be optimized to achieve the best expected outcome in a way that is not too expensive, complex, or demanding to be implementable. This workshop will provide a non-technical introduction to recent methodological advances for optimizing adaptive prevention, treatment or recovery services for SUD.
We will begin by defining adaptive interventions and discussing the motivation for this intervention design. This will be followed by presenting the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) — an engineering-inspired organizing framework for optimizing and evaluating interventions—and discussing how this framework can be used to guide and inform the development of adaptive interventions. We will then discuss innovations in methodologies to optimize three types of adaptive interventions: (1) Multilevel Adaptive Implementation Strategies (MAISYs); (2) Multimodality Adaptive Interventions (MADIs); and (3) Personalizing Just In Time Adaptive Interventions (pJITAIs).
Framework for improving policy evaluations of the opioid crisis
Speakers
- Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, PhD, University of Southern California
- Rosanna Smart, PhD , RAND
With fatal opioid overdoses rising steadily between 1999-2022, researchers have tried to identify effective policy approaches that can stem the tide and mitigate associated harms. And while fatal opioid overdoses have been declining since 2023, scientists remain unclear what exactly caused the downturn. A substantial literature assessing the causal effects of opioid policies has developed, but inconsistent findings across studies have engendered confusion regarding the effectiveness of specific policies or the role they may or may not have played in the turnaround. In this workshop, we will discuss some the key factors that have led to this confusion in the literature, which largely stem from different disciplinary languages and traditions contributing to the science base. We will present a uniform framework for approaching and presenting opioid policy evaluations, which if used, can improve the exchange of knowledge across different disciplines contributing to this field and speed up the pace of science.
Under 25 Substance Use: Trends and Treatment
Speakers
- Ashton Doby Tisdale, LISW-CP, LAC, AADC, Ashton Doby Counseling LLC, Columbia, South Carolina
Participants will be able to Identify current substance use trends in adolescents and young adults under the age of 25, Recognize substances of current popularity and methods of use among adolescents and young adults under the age of 25, and Analyze evidence based practices in recovery management specific to treatment of adolescents and young adults under the age of 25
Beyond Treatment: How Peer Support Transforms Engagement in Addiction Care
Speakers
- Kayla Jensen, CPSS, Forensic PSS, Certified Recovery Doula RSS Program Manager
- Andy Deines, CSW, CPSS ARCHES Project Lead
- Mersades Morgan, CPSS, Price Program Manager
- Becca Brown, CPSS/FPSS, Training & Program Director
- Vanessa Genova, CPSS, ARCHES Program Manager
Recovery outcomes are shaped not only by evidence-based treatment, but by how people experience the systems designed to help them. Peer support bridges the gap between clinical care and recovery by cultivating hope, stigma reduction, and improving engagement by leveraging lived-expertise combined with relationship enhancement skills. This workshop will provide interactive activities that illustrate the impact of person-first language, forward-focused communication, and the challenges of system navigation. The workshop begins with a person-first language exercise that demonstrates how stigma influences clinical decision-making and compares participant responses to published research. Participants will then engage in a motivational interviewing-inspired activity that practices shifting conversations from deficit-focused questioning toward strengths-based, future-oriented dialogue. Finally, volunteers will participate in an experiential demonstration illustrating the complex and often competing demands faced by individuals in early recovery, highlighting the unique role peer support specialists play in helping people navigate systems while maintaining hope and autonomy.
Throughout the session, presenters will connect each activity to current evidence supporting peer services and discuss practical applications across healthcare, behavioral health, and community settings.
Context Matters: Health Services Research in a Rapidly Changing Environment
Speakers
- Sharon Reif, PhD, Brandeis University
- Rosalie Pacula, PhD, University of Southern California
As health services researchers, studying service delivery in situ is essential. Our inquiries frequently require a balance of implementation and effectiveness questions to ensure that we capture the uniqueness of settings. But the real world is dynamic (e.g., policy changes) and does not also reflect what is expected at the outset (e.g., implementation changes). Context also matters when measuring comparability over time or between settings, creating a clear challenge for research. Examples may include the ability to assess a single opioid-related intervention in a state while additional funds and interventions are continually being applied; assessing interventions that are implemented during a seminal period or even a shock point in time (e.g., changes to Medicaid coverage or COVID); and making policy recommendations across studies with contrasting findings when the settings are very different.
This workshop will discuss how changing contexts can impact the design, analyses, interpretation, translation, and dissemination of addiction health services research, and moreover, its enduring relevance. We will engage in an interactive discussion with audience members to share lessons of practical and effective approaches to preserve research and dissemination in a sea of challenges. Further, the discussion could be used to inform a commentary that could be shared more broadly with the field.