Dr Nicola Black from NDARC presented at the 2020 NDARC Webinar Series on Thursday, 23 April 2020.

In this seminar, a new core outcome set for substance use and addictive behaviour disorders is presented, and the methodology for development described.

Value in healthcare is defined as the outcomes of care relative to costs. An essential element to achieving value in healthcare is to understand which outcomes matter most to patients, and to be able to measure and compare these routinely in clinical practice. The goal of the current work was to develop a minimum, standardised set of outcome measures that could be implemented globally across intervention settings for substance use and addictive behaviour disorders. Dr Black presents the methods and results of an international, multidisciplinary consensus-based approach to developing this standard set.

Speaker Bio:

Dr Nicola Black is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. Dr Black completed her Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) and PhD in the field of health psychology at the University of Sydney. Her PhD focused on applying health psychology theories to better understand and reduce binge drinking behaviour, particularly amongst young adults. She subsequently completed a postdoctoral position at the University of Aberdeen, UK, applying novel methods to improve the evidence base on behavioural interventions for smoking cessation.

Dr Black's research interests primarily include (1) understanding the mechanisms of behaviour change to promote healthy lifestyle behaviours and wellbeing, with a focus on motivational, automatic, and control factors; and (2) improving methods of conducting research, particularly the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews. She is currently working across a variety of projects related to reducing consumption and related harms of cigarette smoking, alcohol, and illicit drugs.