Current Projects
Welcome to the NCYSUR project page. NCYSUR is dedicated to advancing our understanding of substance use among young individuals, and here you will find a curated collection of our centre's current research projects.
Assessment and Treatment of Youth Substance Use Disorders
Date of project:
2023 to ongoing
Project Description
- Substance use assessment and treatmentGenetic markers of substance dependence
- Measurement of substance craving and addiction psychometrics
- Novel psychological models of problem drinking
Aims
These research projects aim to address the spectrum of youth substance disorders from and the assessment and treatment of these disorders.
Principal investigator and contact
Professor Jason Connor; Jason.Connor@uq.edu.au
NCYSUR and Lives Lived Well Project Members
Professor Leanne Hides
Honorary Professor John Saunders
Honorary Professor Paul Clark
Dr Gabrielle Campbell
Dr Nina Pocuca
Dr Juliane Pariz Teixeira
Honorary Research Fellow Dr Jason Coates
Student Opportunities
PhD students interested in these projects, please contact the principal investigator with your Academic CV including relevant skills and experience. Please include the academic transcript of your undergraduate studies.
Funding
Projects are funded via several sources, including Department of Health, National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Research Council, and hospital-based funding.
Data linkage project on substance use outcomes
Date of project:
2019 to ongoing
Project Description
Linked data is useful for researching outcomes following substance use treatment because it enables the combination of data from various sources to identify patterns and correlations that may not be evident from each of the separate data source individually. This approach also allows researchers to track patients over time and conduct observational studies to gain valuable insights into treatment outcomes.
This project uses data from a base cohort of individuals who attended a residential treatment service for moderate to severe substance use disorders was linked with administrative data from hospitals, emergency departments, mental health services, alcohol and other drug services, and the registry of deaths. Using this data, we have examined the predictors of residential treatment completion and investigated mortality following discharge from treatment. We are currently investigating health and substance use outcomes following discharge from treatment, specifically looking at service presentations that indicate suicide-related behaviours or a return to substance use.
We also examine the cost-effectiveness of varying alcohol and other drug (AOD) service types for different AOD presentations, including those with polydrug use and comorbid mental health conditions, and to determine client and staff preferences for increasing the uptake of routine outcome measures and feedback in AOD services using a discrete choice experiment.
Principal investigator and contact
Professor Leanne Hides; l.hides@uq.edu.au
NCYSUR and Lives Lived Well Project Members
Mr Calvert Tisdale
Dr Janni Leung
Ms Vivian Chiu
Gabrielle Campbell
External Project Members
Dr Dominique de Andrade
Student Opportunities
There are opportunities for students with excellent writing, oral presentation, and data analysis skills interested in these projects. Please send an email with a cover letter, your Academic CV, and your academic transcript.
Mental health and substance use treatment service utilization
Date of project:
2020 to 2023
Project Description
Mental health conditions are common globally, causing an enormous disease and economic burden, resulting in a significant loss of healthy life, premature death, and loss of productivity. Low resource settings bear a disproportionate share of this disease burden attributed to mental health conditions. In addition to being a significant contributor to disease and economic burden, mental health conditions are often left untreated. Mental health services are scarce, ill-equipped, and underfunded. The availability and accessibility of mental health services are especially problematic in low-resource settings. Moreover, people with mental health conditions often do not use even these scarcely available services, due to low mental health literacy, or fearing the stigma and discrimination attached to accessing mental health services. Despite the recent advances in incorporating mental health into a global health agenda, the scarcity of mental health services remains an important public health issue.
Aims
Using multiple research methods this thesis aimed to:
- Estimate the treatment rates for depression and alcohol use disorder;
- Estimate the remission rate from untreated depression;
- Explore the perspectives of health professionals on mental health services in a low-resource setting;
- Assess mental health service utilization (intention, treatment seeking, and barriers to care) in a low-resource setting, Northwest Ethiopia.
Principal investigator
Mr Tesfa Mekonen
Principal contact
Dr Janni Leung; j.leung1@uq.edu.au
NCYSUR and Lives Lived Well Project Members
Mr Tesfa Mekonen
Dr Janni Leung
Associate Prof. Gary Chan
Prof Leanne Hides
Prof Wayne Hall
Prof Jason Conor
Mr Habte Belete
Ms Lily Davidson
External collaborators
Tilahun Belete
Melak Menberu
Ms Sarah Ford
Student Opportunities
There are opportunities for students with excellent writing, oral presentation, and data analysis skills interested in these projects. Please send an email with a cover letter, your Academic CV, and your academic transcript.
Preventing substance use and mental health problems in Africa
Date of project:
2021 to ongoing
Project Description and Aims
Substance use and mental disorders are a major contributor to the global burden of disease. The impact is important also in low-income countries, including Sub-Sahara Africa, where epidemiological research and prevention programs are currently lacking.
The common risk factors of mental health problems and substance use typically starts during the adolescence stage. Therefore, early monitoring and prevention of risk factors are required to reduce the burden of mental health and substance use.
Even though the burden of substance use is important in low-income countries, there is poor drug use monitoring, and cost-effective prevention strategies for substance use are underutilized among adolescents. This project aims to:
- To synthesize a regional level of systematic review and meta-analysis of illicit and licit drug use in Sub-Saharan Africa
- To adapt and develop effective risk prevention interventions such as school-based or community-based substance use preventive interventions to prevent addictive behaviours including substance use among adolescents and promote a healthy lifestyle and mental wellness.
This project bridges multiple disciplines including psychiatry, psychology, public health, statistics, and epidemiology to achieve our goal of creating high-quality empirical evidence to reduce the burden of mental and substance use disorders including preventing substance use among adolescents in low-income settings.
Principal investigator and contact
Mr. Habte Belete; h.gobie@uq.net.au
NCYSUR and Lives Lived Well Project Members
Mr Tesfa Mekonen,
Ms Danielle Dawson,
Dr Janni Leung,
Associate Professor Gary Chan,
Dr Daniel Stjepanovic,
Professor Leanne Hides,
Emeritus Professor Wayne Hall,
Professor Jason Connor,
External Project members
Ms Dorothy Claire Espinosa
Professor Fentie Ambaw
Prof. Dr. Tanja Michael
Prof. (apl.) Dr. Monika Equit
Student Opportunities
There are opportunities for students with excellent writing, oral presentation, and data analysis skills interested in these projects. Please send an email with a cover letter, your Academic CV, and your academic transcript.
Public health impacts of cannabis legalisation
Date of project:
2018 to ongoing
Project Description
The legality of cannabis has always been a controversial topic in society and even more so today as more countries are working towards legalising it. Cannabis has a lengthy and complicated history in Australia. Cannabis was used medicinally and available over the counter until the beginning of the 20th century. Since then, cannabis has traditionally been regarded as a prohibited substance by Australia’s regulatory regime. But that changed when the Australian Parliament passed the amendments to the Narcotic Drugs Act (1967) to allow access to medicinal cannabis in 2016, with rules differing between jurisdictions. In 2019, the Australian Capital Territory decriminalised cannabis for non-medicinal uses for adults.
Epidemiological evidence about the benefits and harms surrounding cannabis use remains debatable. Nonetheless, Australians are shifting rapidly to a more accepting attitude towards cannabis use in recent years. Understanding policy-related impact is useful in assessing future cannabis-related harms in the population.
As cannabis regulations evolve and the cannabis industry matures, further work in public attitudes, use intention and expectancies is needed to understand possible future public health effects arising from legalisation.
Aims
This project examines:
- Prevalence
- Age-period-cohort trends
- Policy impacts
- Perceived harmfulness
- Availability of cannabis
- Price and access
- Cannabis use intentions
- Frequent cannabis use
- Hospital and emergency presentations
- Accidental consumption by children
- Motor vehicle accidents
- Cannabis-related harms
Principal investigators
Emeritus Professor Wayne Hall
Ms Vivian Chiu
Dr Janni Leung
Principal contact
Dr Janni Leung; j.leung1@uq.edu.au
NCYSUR Project Members
Emeritus Professor Wayne Hall
Dr Janni Leung
Ms Vivian Chiu
Associate Professor Gary Chan
Dr Daniel Stjepanovic
Professor Leanne Hides
Professor Jason Connor
Ms Danielle Dawson
Ms Carmen Lim
Jack Chung
External Collaborators
Prof Louisa Degenhardt
David Hammond
Beatriz H. Carlini
Student Opportunities
There are opportunities for students with excellent writing, oral presentation, and data analysis skills interested in these projects. Please send an email with a cover letter, your Academic CV, and your academic transcript.
Substance use on social media (SUSM)
Date of project:
2020 to ongoing
Project Description and Aims
Social media use continues to grow, supplanting traditional social interaction and traditional media. As such, social media platforms have become popular avenues for alcohol and other drugs content.
This project collects data on the level of exposure to substance use related content on social media and analyse what substance use related content are youth exposed to on social media.
Principal investigator and contact
Dr Janni Leung; j.leung1@uq.edu.au
NCYSUR and Lives Lived Well Project Members
Associate Professor Gary Chan
Dr Daniel Stjepanovic
Professor Leanne Hides
Emeritus Professor Wayne Hall
Professor Jason Connor
Tianze Sun
Brienna Rutherford
Carmen Lim
Calvert Tisdale
Jack Chung
Branden Cheng
Lily Davidson
Danielle Dawson
Caitlin McClure-Thomas
Student Opportunities
There are opportunities for students with excellent writing, oral presentation, and data analysis skills interested in these projects. Please send an email with a cover letter, your Academic CV, and your academic transcript.
Funding
Department of Health, Australia
The Adolescent Aware Project (AA)
Date of project:
2017 to ongoing
Project Description and Aims
Adolescent Aware is a longitudinal study, lead by Dr Catherine Quinn and a team of researchers, with over 2000 students from 14 schools in South East Queensland, Australia, which follows these students from Grade 7 and 8, through to the end of high school (Grade 12). Data were collected between 2017-2020, data analysis and dissemination of research findings are on-going.
A variety of outcomes are assessed in the study including alcohol and cigarette use, wellbeing, resilience, depression, social anxiety, bullying, victimization, technology use, sleeping habits and dieting. The study examines social, peer, and individual influences in affecting health-related outcomes in adolescents.
Principal investigator
Prof Leanne Hides
Dr Cath Quinn
Principal contact
Rhiannon Ellem; r.ellem@uq.edu.au
NCYSUR and Lives Lived Well Project Members
Ms Rhiannon Ellem
Mr Calvert Tisdale
Associate Professor Gary Chan
Dr Janni Leung
Ms Jisu Choi
Ms Lily Davidson
Dr Molly Carlyle
Dr Melanie White
Prof David Kavanagh
Jack Chung
Student Opportunities
There are opportunities for students with excellent writing, oral presentation, and data analysis skills interested in these projects. Please send an email with a cover letter, your Academic CV, and your academic transcript.
For Schools
We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with schools to promote the well-being of their students through research on mental health and addiction issues. Our team is available to visit schools, give talks, and conduct assessments that can help identify any potential issues and provide valuable insights to support school-wide interventions and initiatives. If you are interested in partnering with us, please don't hesitate to contact us to discuss the specifics of our research methodology and how we can tailor our approach to meet your school's unique needs.
Funding
Australian Commonwealth funding awarded to the National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research (NCYSUR) through the Australian Government Drug and Alcohol Program was the primary funder of this project. The project was supported by a 2017 early career research grant from the School of Psychology at The University of Queensland awarded to CQ. JL, GC, and LH are supported by The National Health and Medical Research Council grants. The funding sources had no role in the design of this study and did not have any role during its execution, analyses, interpretation of the data, or decision to submit results.
The COVID-19 four country well-being project (COVID-4C)
Date of project:
2020 to ongoing
Project Description and Aims
This multi-country project investigates quality of life, mental health, wellbeing, loneliness, worry and use of social media to stay connected. Data were collected using self-report cross-sectional surveys. It is an international collaboration between Norway, USA, UK, and Australia.
Australian-site lead and Contact
Dr Janni Leung; j.leung1@uq.edu.au
International project lead
Prof Amy Østertun Geirdal
NCYSUR Project Members
Ms Caitlin McClure-Thomas
Ms Vivian Chiu
International Project Members
Prof Amy Østertun Geirdal
Prof Tore Bonsaksen
Prof Hilde Thygesen
Prof Gary.Lamph
Dr Price she-her, Daicia
Prof Ruffolo, Mary
Mr Isaac Kabelenga
Dr Mariyana Schoultz
Student Opportunities
There are opportunities for students with excellent writing, oral presentation, and data analysis skills interested in these projects. Please send an email with a cover letter, your Academic CV, and your academic transcript.
The epidemiology and burden of substance use and mental health project (EPI-BAB)
Date of project:
2022 to ongoing
Project Description and Aims
Substance use, addiction, and mental health problems are leading cause of disease burden globally and in Australia. Research on their risk factors, outcomes, and prevention strategies are public health priorities.
This project involves multiple methods, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses, longitudinal and data-linkage studies, population surveys, burden disease estimations, and predictive modelling designs.
The research program has high public health significance because the innovative use of cohort and data-linkage approach generates new knowledge about the burden of mental health problems and substance use on health outcomes. The modelling work provides a rich dataset to inform preventive strategies on disease burden in the future, in line with NHMRC’s research priority to preventive research.
Principal investigator and contact
Dr Janni Leung; j.leung1@uq.edu.au
NCYSUR and Lives Lived Well Project Members
Associate Professor Gary Chan
Dr Daniel Stjepanovic
Ms Vivian Chiu
Mr Tesfa Mekonen Yimer
Mr Calvert Tisdale
Ms Caitlin Mcclure-Thomas
Ms Danielle Dawson
Ms Carmen Lim
Ms Tianze Sun
Ms Brienna Rutherford
Mr Jack Chung
Ms Giang Vu
Dr Dominique De Andrade
Dr Gabrielle Campbell
Professor Leanne Hides
Emeritus Professor Wayne Hall
Professor Jason Connor
Devika Oberai
External collaborators
Dr Daniel Erku
Dr Jessica Kerr
Prof Craig Olsson
Dr Hanafi Mohamad Husin
Dr Thomas Santo Jr
Dr Emily Stockings
Prof Rebecca McKetin
Dr Sam Colledge-Frisby
Prof Shalini Arunogiri
Prof Amy Peacock
Dr Wing See Yuen
Dr Nicola Man
Prof Louisa Degenhardt
Student Opportunities
There are opportunities for students with excellent writing, oral presentation, and data analysis skills interested in these projects. Please send an email with a cover letter, your Academic CV, and your academic transcript.
Funding
The University of Queensland, Australia. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australia
The Indonesia Smoke-Free Project (IS-Free)
Date of project:
2022 to ongoing
Project Description
This project seeks to understand and respond to Indonesia's tobacco public health crisis. We plan to gather information on the perceptions, attitudes and health awareness of second-hand smoke and smoke-free zones in Indonesia. The findings from this research project will allow us to develop and disseminate a social media campaign to promote smoke-free zoning, by spreading awareness of the health impacts of second-hand smoke.
Aims
This research project aims to recruit participants who have lived in Indonesia, to take part in an online questionnaire and focus groups run in Indonesia and Australia, to examine:
- Perceptions of the harms of second-hand smoke.
- Compliance with smoke-free zones.
- Campaign suitability for the Indonesian cultural context.
Principal investigator and Contact
Dr Janni Leung; j.leung1@uq.edu.au
NCYSUR Project Members
Dr Janni Leung
Ms Carmen Lim
Ms Caitlin McClure-Thomas
External Project Collaborators
Dr Susy K. Sebayang
Dr Fitri Fausiah
Ms Ghea Farassania
Dr Sintha Dewi
Dr Sri Widati
Dr Rizanna Rosemary
Ms Fang-Yi-Su
Mr Shaun Foo
Student Opportunities
We are currently accepting expressions of interest from students and collaborators interested in contributing to this project. If you are interested, please contact the principal investigator with your Academic CV including relevant skills and experience. Please include the academic transcript of your undergraduate studies.
Funding
This project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) under the Australia-Indonesia Institute Grant (AII202100095).
The International Gaming Addiction Project (IGAP)
Date of project:
2021 to ongoing
Project Description and Aims
Video game addiction has significant impacts on physical and mental health, and vocational and social functioning. International Gaming Study (IGS2022) cross-sectional survey is part of this project. It laid the foundational work for the World Health Organisation (WHO), via Prof John Saunders, to develop a diagnostic schedule for gaming disorder for global adoption.
To date, the project has collected self-report data on video gaming related items, socio-demographic and individual characteristics factors, and physical symptoms from 1000 participants. We will collect new data in Australia and other parts of the world with our international collaborators to further inform WHO’s development of a diagnostic schedule for gaming disorder.
The collaboration bridges multiple disciplines including psychiatry, psychology, public health, and epidemiology to achieve our shared goal of creating high-quality empirical evidence to enhance the well-being of those who engage in videogaming.
Principal Investigators and Contact
Associate Professor Gary Chan; c.chan4@uq.edu.au (principal contact for detecting gaming addiction and psychometrics)
Dr Janni Leung; j.leung1@uq.edu.au (principal contact for studies on women who game and physical comorbidities)
Dr Daniel Stjepanovic; d.stjepanovic@uq.edu.au (principal contact for addiction, impairment, and resilience)
NCYSUR Project Members
Prof John B. Saunders
Ms Tianze Sun
Mr Calvert Tisdale
Mr Ben Johnson
Professor Leanne Hides
Professor Jason Connor
External Project Members
Dr Andrew Wood
Prof Daniel Johnson
Dr Kristiana Siste
Student Opportunities
There are opportunities for students with excellent writing, oral presentation, and data analysis skills interested in these projects. Please send an email with a cover letter, your Academic CV, and your academic transcript.
Funding
The University of Queensland, Australia
The Japan Tobacco Use and Smoking Project (JTUS)
Date of project:
2021 to ongoing
Project Description and Aims
The Japan Tobacco Use and Smoking Project (JTUS) is a collaboration between NCYSUR and the The International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (the ITC Project).
The ITC Project is the first-ever international cohort study of tobacco use. Its overall objective is to measure the psychosocial and behavioural impact of key national level policies of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The ITC Project is a collaborative effort with international health organizations and policymakers in 31 countries so far, inhabited by >50% of the world's population, >60% of the world's smokers, and >70% of the world's tobacco users.
JTUS aims to have a more focused look at Japan, examining tobacco-related topics on:
- Perceptions of smoking cessation aids
- Health conditions and concerns about the health effects
- Longitudinal predictors of quitting smoking
- Social norms around smoking and heated tobacco product use
- Exposure to tobacco advertising and promotions
- Knowledge of health effects related to smoking
Principal Investigator and Contact
Dr Janni Leung; j.leung1@uq.edu.au
NCYSUR Project Members
Ara Cho
Giang Vu
Gary Chung Kai Chan
Tianze Sun
International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (ITC) collaborators
Shannon Gravely
Anne C. K. Quah
Steve Xu
Geoffrey Fong
Kota Katanoda
Takahiro Tabuchi
Kayo Togawa
Student Opportunities
There are opportunities for students with excellent writing, oral presentation, and data analysis skills interested in these projects. Please send an email with a cover letter, your Academic CV, and your academic transcript.
The Medicinal Cannabis Use Project (MCU)
Date of project:
2020 to ongoing
Project Description
Medicinal cannabis use has increased in many jurisdictions following the liberalisation of cannabis policy in Canada, parts of the United States, Uruguay, Thailand and Australia. Following these changes, medicinal cannabis use has steadily increased since 2016 when medicinal cannabis policies were relaxed in Australia. Current research indicates that our knowledge of the regulated and unregulated use of medicinal cannabis in Australia remains impoverished.
To better understand this topic, we will be utilising systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and experimental, quantitative, and qualitative methodologies to understand the epidemiology of the use of medicinal cannabis. There is a lack of understanding about which health conditions and symptoms are most often associated with medicinal cannabis usage and a dearth of information regarding the preparation or dose size of medicinal cannabis used in Australia. Furthermore, little recent literature to date has examined the risk of cannabis use disorder in people who use medicinal cannabis or explored the risk of developing a tolerance to medicinal cannabis products.
Aims
The aim of this project is to understand the complex relationships and patterns which exist within the medicinal cannabis population and to identify the underlying public health implications of medicinal cannabis use across different populations.
Principal investigator and contact
Danielle Dawson; danielle.dawson@uq.net.au
NCYSUR Project Members
Dr Janni Leung
Dr Daniel Stjepanovic
Professor Leanne Hides
Emeritus Professor Wayne Hall
Professor Jason Connor
Mr Jack Chung
Associate Prof Gary Chung Kai Chan
External Project Members
Associate Professor Valentina Lorenzetti
Prof David Hammond
Student Opportunities
For motivated and organised students with a specific interest in researching cannabis, there are opportunities for PhD, Honours and research projects. Please send an email with a cover letter, your Academic CV, and your academic transcript.
Youth Substance Use Policy
Date of project:
2023 to ongoing
Project Description
Prevention of youth substance use and problem use, including vaping
Novel psychological models of problem drinking
Substance use policy for young people
Aims
These research projects aim to address the spectrum of youth substance disorders and the policies relating to these substance use disorders.
Principal investigator and contact
Emeritus Professor Wayne Hall; w.hall@uq.edu.au
NCYSUR and Lives Lived Well Project Members
Professor Jason Connor
Professor Leanne Hides
Associate Professor Gary Chan
Dr Janni Leung
Dr Daniel Stjepanovic
Dr Gabrielle Campbell
Dr Nina Pocuca
Dr Juliane Pariz Teixeira
Student Opportunities
PhD students interested in these projects, please contact the principal investigator with your Academic CV including relevant skills and experience. Please include the academic transcript of your undergraduate studies.
Funding
Projects are funded via several sources, including The Department of Health, National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Research Council, and hospital-based funding.
Youth Vaping Prevention Program (YVPP)
Date of project:
2021 to ongoing
Project Description
Our team at the National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research (NCYSUR) has developed a vaping outreach program to combat the rising trend of e-cigarette usage among Australian youth.
This 45-minute interactive program focuses on educating school students on the principles of harm minimisation, encouraging non-use, and promoting a cultural shift in attitudes towards vaping.
The materials and approaches are adapted from the Stanford Tobacco Prevention Toolkit. This school-based e-cigarette education program is developed by experts in the field and has been shown to reduce intentions to try e-cigarettes and increase students' perception of the harmfulness and addictiveness of e-cigarettes.
Aims
Our program aims to:
- Increase students' awareness and understanding of the harmfulness and addictiveness of e-cigarettes.
- Reduce intentions to try and use e-cigarettes among young people.
- Promote a culture of informed decision-making by providing evidence-based education on vaping and its impact on health and well-being.
- Foster resilience and empower youth to resist peer and societal pressures to experiment with vaping.
- Continuously improve the program based on evidence and feedback.
Principal investigators and contact
Ms Tianze Sun; tianze.sun@uq.edu.au
Associate Professor Gary Chan; c.chan4@uq.edu.au
NCYSUR Project Members
Dr Janni Leung
Professor Jason Connor
Dr Daniel Stjepanovic
Emeritus Professor Wayne Hall
Brienna Rutherford
Carmen Lim
Daniel Stjepanovic
Contact us for School Presentations:
We are committed to combating the rise in vaping among young Australians and have been delivering interactive presentations to schools in Queensland. Our goal is to educate youth about the potential harms of vaping and encourage responsible decision-making. If you are interested in having our team present at your school or would like to discuss collaboration opportunities, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.