Prescription Drug Abuse a Decade into the Epidemic: Lessons learned in Tennessee

Dr. Robert Pack is Professor of Community and Behavioral Health, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Public Health at East Tennessee State University (ETSU), and Director of the new ETSU Center for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment. The Center grew out of a university and community collaborative that was started in 2012 to address the regional problem of prescription opioid abuse. At least five funded projects and dozens of other academic products have grown out of the Working Group. Dr. Pack is currently PI of the NIH/NIDA-funded Diversity Promoting Institutions Drug Abuse Research Program at ETSU, the research component of which is the fiveyear set of three studies titled Inter-professional Communication to Prevent Prescription Drug Abuse and Misuse. He was trained in health education/health promotion at the UAB Ryals School of Public Health and is experienced in designing, running and disseminating theory-based intervention studies. In 2014, he was trained at the NIH-funded Training Institute for Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health.