Publications

Dissemination of findings is crucial to the NDEWS mission, as a warning from an Early Warning System is not effective unless recipients know they have been warned. Our plan for dissemination is five-fold:

  • Indicator Dashboards: Modeled after the Florida Drug-Related Outcomes Surveillance and Tracking System (FROST), directed by Co-Investigator Dr. Bruce Goldberger, NDEWS will build interactive dashboards on our website to display indicator data that our sentinel sites collect on an ongoing basis. This means that at any point in time, interested parties can access the most up-to-date NDEWS data without waiting for static tables in annual reports. Dashboards will include query options for sentinel site locations, indicators, substances, and time periods, and data will be updated on a monthly basis.
  • Peer-Reviewed Publications: NDEWS will submit manuscripts to peer-reviewed journals on findings alongside sentinel site directors and collaborators to ensure the highest standards of science. All publications will also be listed on our website.
  • NDEWS Weekly Briefings: Each week, NDEWS will send out a Weekly Briefing newsletter with curated information on recent and relevant news, articles, and data related to drug trends in the United States and globally. Subscribe here to receive the Weekly Briefing in your email. While this communication method is primarily unidirectional (e.g., there is no ability to “reply all”), we also welcome questions from the scientific community and public at large, which we will include in the following week’s Briefing as relevant.
  • Reports: All sentinel sites will submit annual site reports on drug use and trends in their communities. The NDEWS Coordinating Center will also publish an annual report with cross-site comparisons. Additionally, all NDEWS HotSpot investigations––which will occur in response to an outbreak of significant proportion that needs an immediate evaluation of the depth, cause, and impact of the drug-related event––will result in HotSpot reports.
  • Webinars: NDEWS will host bi-monthly national town hall meetings, titled Our Community, Our Health (OCOH), modeled after those conducted by Dr. Cottler’s community engagement program HealthStreet. These national town halls promote bi-directional communication between researchers and the communities they serve, addressing relevant health topics and disseminating research findings. The events will be streamed nationwide and will be interactive, using social media for Q&A in real-time.

The National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS) is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (U01DA051126) to the University of Florida (PI: Cottler; Co-Is: Goldberger, Nixon, Striley), New York University (Co-I: Palamar), and Florida Atlantic University (Co-I: Barenholtz).