Substance abuse and dependence”

This area covers different aspects of alcohol use, drug addictions and comorbidities. Partly this is in involved in epidemiological research using either general population health surveys or national health registries to look at the impact of alcohol use on health issues or the somatic and psychiatric comorbidities of people in treatment for alcohol and drug use problems. This has also meant that we have looked at prescription drug abuse and even the impact of snus (smokeless tobacco) use. Furthermore, the group is involved in clinical studies investigating patients in treatment or drug users in their daily setting, covering themes like depression, antisocial personality disorder, the effects of training and sleep on recovery, and the impact of having responsibility for a pet. The latter years the group has been mostly involved in two thematic areas: the extent of and impact of presystemic alcohol metabolism on the consequences of alcohol use, including depressive disorder and the concept and clinical features of drug induced psychosis.

Group members

Jørgen G. Bramness, professor, M.D., PhD and specialist in psychiatry. He has published more than 230 scientific papers on the topics of psychiatric epidemiology, pharmacology, drug dependence and drug abuse. He has published more than 20 books and textbook chapters and many popular science contributions. From 2008-16 he was Research Director at the Centre for Addiction Research (SERAF) and professor at UiO. He is now a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (main position) and at the Norwegian National Advisory Unit on Concurrent Substance Abuse and Mental Health, Innlandet Hospital, Hamar and Professor at the Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway. He is First Vice-President of the European Federation for Addiction Societies (EUFAS) and editorial board member of European Addiction Research. Main research areas are the use and abuse of psychotropic drugs, the boundary between substance use disorders and mental disorders, the epidemiology and biology of alcohol use. He has been the main supervisor for 9 PhD at other universities and is currently the main supervisor for 3 PhD candidates.

Jenny Skumsnes Moe is a medical doctor and a PhD student at UiT working on genetic predictors of depression I alcohol use disorder patients.

Andi Kerr-Little is MSc and a PhD-student at UiT working on a mixed methods project on the impact on daily life, mental health, and drug use of pet ownership in marginalized drug users.

Pia Bondø is a medical doctor and PhD student at UiT working on the impact of snus (smokeless nicotine product) on mental health and well-being in the general population.

Associate members

Anne Høye is professor pf psychiatry working together within this thematic area on somatic and psychiatric comorbidities.

Ina Heiberg is Post Doc and working with this thematic area on statistical matters