U.S. Rural Drug Abuse Research Needs and Research Policy

SUMMARY

This article is the result of a literature review and assessment of U.S. rural drug abuse research and drug research policy formation by government agencies. It also presents results of a participant observation study of one of the major research institutes, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and its linkages with groups influential to its research policies. NIDA also has linkages that influence its other activities, such as service and drug testing oversight functions, but these activities were not studied. This review reveals a decade of relative inattention to the job of obtaining a national assessment of the rural drug situation, especially with regard to prevalence and impact of drugs in the adult population, efficacy of prevention efforts by rural institutions and workplaces, effectiveness of treatment programs, and drugs and crime. There have also teen relatively few individual subnational or regional research efforts or even rural- urban case study comparisons aimed at these research topics. A variety of influences on drag research policy were discovered; rural drug research advocates need to be knowledgeable about these influences in order to make use of them to stimulate support for rural drug research. The main influences were found to be in certain committees and offices in the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. Cases were also identified, however, in which non-governmental organizations were found to be influential and, in certain cases, even individuals were found to have some impact on research policy.