Association of Cohort and Individual Substance Use With Risk of Transitioning to Drug Use, Drug Use Disorder, and Remission From Disorder: Findings From the World Mental Health Surveys

Importance: Limited empirical research has examined the extent to which cohort-level prevalence of substance use is associated with the onset of drug use and transitioning into greater involvement with drug use. Objective: To use cross-national data to examine time-space variation in cohort-level drug use to assess its associations with onset and transitions across stages of drug use, abuse, dependence, and remission. Design, Setting, and Participants: The World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys carried out cross-sectional general population surveys in 25 countries using a consistent research protocol and assessment instrument. Adults from representative household samples were interviewed face-to-face in the community in relation to drug use disorders. The surveys were conducted between 2001 and 2015. Data analysis was performed from July 2017 to July 2018. Main Outcomes and Measures: Data on timing of onset of lifetime drug use, DSM-IV drug use disorders, and remission from these disorders was assessed using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Associations of cohort-level alcohol prevalence and drug use prevalence were examined as factors associated with these transitions. Results: Among the 90 027 respondents (48.1% [SE, 0.2%] men; mean [SE] age, 42.1 [0.1] years), 1 in 4 (24.8% [SE, 0.2%]) reported either illicit drug use or extramedical use of prescription drugs at some point in their lifetime, but with substantial time-space variation in this prevalence. Among users, 9.1% (SE, 0.2%) met lifetime criteria for abuse, and 5.0% (SE, 0.2%) met criteria for dependence. Individuals who used 2 or more drugs had an increased risk of both abuse (odds ratio, 5.17 [95% CI, 4.66-5.73]; P \u3c .001) and dependence (odds ratio, 5.99 [95% CI, 5.02-7.16]; P \u3c .001) and reduced probability of remission from abuse (odds ratio, 0.86 [95% CI, 0.76-0.98]; P = .02). Birth cohort prevalence of drug use was also significantly associated with both initiation and illicit drug use transitions; for example, after controlling for individuals’ experience of substance use and demographics, for each additional 10% of an individual’s cohort using alcohol, a person’s odds of initiating drug use increased by 28% (odds ratio, 1.28 [95% CI, 1.26-1.31]). Each 10% increase in a cohort’s use of drug increased individual risk by 12% (1.12 [95% CI, 1.11-1.14]). Conclusions and Relevance: Birth cohort substance use is associated with drug use involvement beyond the outcomes of individual histories of alcohol and other drug use. This has important implications for understanding pathways into and out of problematic drug use

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Hair Cortisol in Twins : Heritability and Genetic Overlap with Psychological Variables and Stress-System Genes

A. Palotie on työryhmän jäsen.Hair cortisol concentration (HCC) is a promising measure of long-term hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity. Previous research has suggested an association between HCC and psychological variables, and initial studies of inter-individual variance in HCC have implicated genetic factors. However, whether HCC and psychological variables share genetic risk factors remains unclear. The aims of the present twin study were to: (i) assess the heritability of HCC; (ii) estimate the phenotypic and genetic correlation between HPA axis activity and the psychological variables perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and neuroticism; using formal genetic twin models and molecular genetic methods, i.e. polygenic risk scores (PRS). HCC was measured in 671 adolescents and young adults. These included 115 monozygotic and 183 dizygotic twin-pairs. For 432 subjects PRS scores for plasma cortisol, major depression, and neuroticism were calculated using data from large genome wide association studies. The twin model revealed a heritability for HCC of 72%. No significant phenotypic or genetic correlation was found between HCC and the three psychological variables of interest. PRS did not explain variance in HCC. The present data suggest that HCC is highly heritable. However, the data do not support a strong biological link between HCC and any of the investigated psychological variables.Peer reviewe

Dissecting the Shared Genetic Architecture of Suicide Attempt, Psychiatric Disorders, and Known Risk Factors

Background Suicide is a leading cause of death worldwide, and nonfatal suicide attempts, which occur far more frequently, are a major source of disability and social and economic burden. Both have substantial genetic etiology, which is partially shared and partially distinct from that of related psychiatric disorders. Methods We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 29,782 suicide attempt (SA) cases and 519,961 controls in the International Suicide Genetics Consortium (ISGC). The GWAS of SA was conditioned on psychiatric disorders using GWAS summary statistics via multitrait-based conditional and joint analysis, to remove genetic effects on SA mediated by psychiatric disorders. We investigated the shared and divergent genetic architectures of SA, psychiatric disorders, and other known risk factors. Results Two loci reached genome-wide significance for SA: the major histocompatibility complex and an intergenic locus on chromosome 7, the latter of which remained associated with SA after conditioning on psychiatric disorders and replicated in an independent cohort from the Million Veteran Program. This locus has been implicated in risk-taking behavior, smoking, and insomnia. SA showed strong genetic correlation with psychiatric disorders, particularly major depression, and also with smoking, pain, risk-taking behavior, sleep disturbances, lower educational attainment, reproductive traits, lower socioeconomic status, and poorer general health. After conditioning on psychiatric disorders, the genetic correlations between SA and psychiatric disorders decreased, whereas those with nonpsychiatric traits remained largely unchanged. Conclusions Our results identify a risk locus that contributes more strongly to SA than other phenotypes and suggest a shared underlying biology between SA and known risk factors that is not mediated by psychiatric disorders.Peer reviewe

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security