History

SATRN began as an informal gathering of faculty from several departments and schools across Arizona State University, with shared interests in substance use prevention and treatment as well as biological, psychological, and social mechanisms of addiction. This Trandisciplinary Addiction Research Network met several times per year to share research and discuss possibilities for the future. From these meetings grew a vision of an expanded collaborative network, not only including researchers across a variety of disciplines, but also representatives of community agencies throughout Arizona engaged in work addressing problems associated with substance use disorders.

A generous donation from the Glen J. Swette Jr. Estate in 2021 allowed us to pursue this vision, greatly expanding both the network and our activities. With the additional support of an event grant from the Arizona Biomedical Research Centre, SATRN was launched via a two-day conference in November 2021. This event brought together representatives from dozens of major substance use disorder prevention, treatment, and policy agencies, as well as academic researchers from Arizona’s three public universities. In addition to talks by national experts on the impact of substance use disorder and addiction in Arizona, and panels on challenges faced by community stakeholders as well as funding opportunities for collaborative research, the agenda included breakout sessions aimed at fostering new collaborations and inviting input on SATRN’s next stages of growth.

The launch event was followed by a guided strategic planning process, hosted by representatives from LeCroy & Milligan Associates, aimed at defining SATRN’s mission, vision, values, strategic goals, and concrete 3-year action plan. In addition to consolidating input from the launch event, the strategic planning process included meetings of the SATRN Steering Committee and representatives from five key stakeholder agencies in the Arizona community. SATRN’s activities and growing initiatives now include the Glen J. Swette Seed Grant Program for community-academy substance use research partnerships; bimonthly brownbag research talks; several working groups fostering collaboration on specific topics of shared interest; development of training resources supporting new collaborative efforts; dissemination of well-validated research measures and evidence-based prevention and treatment programs; and more.

In October 2021, the SATRN Steering Committee was expanded to include community stakeholders as well as academic faculty. The second annual SATRN conference was held in December 2021. In May 2023, SATRN hosted its first in-person retreat. The retreat focused on conceptualizing strategic, evidence-based ways to utilize upcoming national opioid settlement funds (OSF) and evaluate the impact of that work. Three dozen representatives from Arizona community organizations, academic researchers, and government policy makers discussed the state of substance use disorder research, as well as prevention and treatment initiatives.