Research Updates from the Blog!

Coronavirus Vaccine Hopes
November 19, 2020Dear Friends, On Monday, November 9th,the CEO of Pfizer announced positive early results from its coronavirus vaccine trial, citing an over 90% effectiveness rate during its first phase of clinical trials. This is truly monumental news of worldwide significance. This fact has renewed hope throughout the country, indeed throughout the world, that we were finally coming closer to achieving a response to this deadly Pandemic. We at The SASSI Institute maintain our fervent hopes that… Read more

Adolescent Vaping: Examining the Dangers
October 15, 2020It is with great pride that we announce the release of our latest adolescent research manuscript. This article is based on one key aspect of the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory (SASSI) Institute’s forthcoming third iteration of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory (SASSI-A3). While our primary goal was to develop a screening tool for adolescents that is concordant with the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) guidelines, we found… Read more

Adolescent SASSI-A3 Available December 1st, 2020
October 1, 2020Our Team at the Institute has been working tirelessly on a two-year research project to bring you an updated adolescent instrument that is validated against the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. Our research has produced multiple publications and allowed the SASSI-A3 to include some new features, including a brief scale, Prescription Drug (Rx), to accurately identify teens likely to be abusing prescription medications. The updated version also includes new subtle items to reflect current teen alcohol and… Read more

Coming Soon: Adolescent SASSI-A3
September 3, 2020We wanted to provide you some important SASSI updates. We’re excited to announce that the research findings on the adolescent SASSI-A3 have been published! Within the coming weeks and next few months, we will be concentrating our efforts on publishing the SASSI-A3 instrument, which similarly to the adult screening tool, now includes a prescription drug scale and greater sensitivity to opioids and prescription medications. The updated instrument will be available on our online platform… Read more
The Latest Research and COVID-19 Update from the CEO
July 2, 2020In a previous post, we discussed how the COVID-19 crisis is affecting the substance use disorder field throughout the country. Unfortunately, last week showed a dramatic increase in the number of reported cases nationally, particularly towards the end of the week (more than 40,000 additional reported cases, mostly from the west coast and southwest). As a result, many colleagues that had reopened for business to provide clients with critically needed services, unfortunately, had to close… Read more
Adolescent SASSI-A3 Research Update
May 21, 2020The SASSI Institute conducted a validation project on the accuracy of the adolescent SASSI substance use screening measure with respect to the most current nationally accepted diagnostic standards for substance use disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders diagnostic criteria (DSM-5). We are delighted to report that our data analyses is complete and presently we are preparing our findings for peer review submission and subsequent publication and dissemination. Decision rules were formulated that would… Read more