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from the issue of April 5, 2007
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Psych symposium to explore smoking, nicotine dependence
BY SARA PIPHER, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
The 55th annual Nebraska Symposium on Motivation will focus on smoking and nicotine dependence, the leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States. The conference, hosted by the Department of Psychology is April 12-13 on City Campus.
"This is an exceedingly relevant topic for Nebraskans," said Rick Bevins, professor of psychology at UNL and co-coordinator of the symposium. "Right now, we're in the process of debating and implementing smoking bans. Nebraska falls right on the average in terms of smoking rates in the country. And, Nebraskans spend a lot of tax money taking care of the sick, or dealing with lost work hours from smokers who become ill."
Nationwide, 21 percent of adults are smokers; these 44.5 million men and women consume over 367 billion cigarettes each year, leading to an estimated 440,000 deaths annually from smoking-related diseases. Smoking is estimated by the Centers for Disease Control to cost more than $167 billion a year in health-related expenses and lost worker productivity.
Bevins expects that more than 200 clinicians, researchers and practitioners will descend on Lincoln from around the country to tackle the problem of nicotine dependence. Traditionally, the UNL symposium is widely attended; it's the world's longest continuously running psychology series, and it attracts the field's most distinguished scholars. Because of its reputation, Bevins said, it is easy to recruit high-caliber speakers.
The symposium will feature presenters from numerous disciplines, including geneticists, pharmacologists, behaviorists, and clinicians. The gamut of research on nicotine dependence - from pre-clinical animal research on the addiction process, to the search for medical treatments, to clinical research on relevant interventions - will be explored at the symposium. A representative from the National Institutes of Health will also attend, to address future directions for research and treatment.
"In terms of the students that attend, I hope they take away a sense of the complexity of these issues, as well as an appreciation for how we go about solving them," Bevins said. "I hope that the trained researchers leave the symposium with an understanding of the directions things are going in, and new and exciting ideas for their research programs. And I hope that clinicians discover new ways to think about treatment process and methods."
The symposium - which will include a poster display - will be held at the Nebraska Union, rooms to be posted.
GO TO: ISSUE OF APRIL 5
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