Pacific Coast Research Center - The PCRC welcomes New Mexico!!
The Pacific Coast Research Center (PCRC) is part of the nationwide network of research centers involved in NIDA’s Criminal Justice – Drug Abuse Treatment Research Studies (CJ-DATS). The Pacific Coast Research Center brings together researchers from a broad array of disciplines with experience in criminal justice, drug abuse, and implementation research. The UCLA Research Center also partners with criminal justice agencies in Washington, New Mexico, Oregon, and California.
Currently, CJ-DATS focuses on the problems of implementing research-based practices drug treatment practices. This research concerns the organizational and systems processes involved in implementing valid, evidence-based practices to reduce drug use and drug-related recidivism for individuals in the criminal justice system. The transfer of scientific knowledge into clinical practice is often slow. Adopting new evidence-based practices often requires substantial commitment from an organization, including evaluating the evidence supporting the new practice, determining what organizational changes are needed to adopt the new practice, hiring and training staff, and allocating time and resources to successfully implement the new clinical practice. Approaches to successfully implement and sustain research-based treatment services and practices (sometimes referred to as Type 2 Translational Research) have received little rigorous study in the context of drug abuse treatment for offenders with substance use disorders.
12 CJ-DATS Research Centers are conducting implementation research in three primary domains:
- Research to improve the implementation of evidence-based assessment processes for
offenders with drug problems - Implementing effective medication-assisted treatment for drug-involved offenders
- Implementing evidence-based interventions to improve an HIV continuum-of-care for
offenders.