Center for Trauma and Mental Health Affiliate Spotlight: each newsletter we feature a CTMH affiliate to learn a bit more about their work. This month, we spoke with Rachel Sayko Adams, PhD, MPH, Research Associate Professor in Health Law, Policy & Management at BUSPH.
In the interview, Dr. Adams describes her path from a BU MPH student to a substance use researcher, explaining how she came to focus on health disparities in access to care and long-term outcomes at the intersection of traumatic brain injury (TBI), mental health, and addiction in both military and civilian populations.
She outlines how she and her colleagues developed the model, "the perfect storm" which describes a cascade of vulnerabilities for people with TBI elevating risk for opioid overdose and suicide. Dr. Adams’s team recently received a second INROADS (Intersecting Research on Opioid Misuse, Addiction, and Disability Services) grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism:
"Now, we're really thinking about the broad community of people with disabilities, including people with TBI... and if they're experiencing alcohol-related problems in the same manner and scope as people without disabilities... We're really trying to discover if there are disparities in care for people with disabilities with alcohol problems... We are partnering with people with lived experience. We think that this is an area where, unfortunately, there's been not much research done to focus on these specific needs, and we're really excited to continue to do this work."