Research Centers

HERG - Health Economics Research Group

HERG conducts research on a variety of health and human resource-related topics, such as the economics of substance abuse treatment and prevention, HIV/AIDS, criminal justice programs, workplace policies and programs, cancer treatment and prevention, health system changes, and mental health.

The majority of research conducted by the HERG is supported by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).  Some recent funded projects include " Alcohol Use and Social Capital" (NIAAA, Grant No. R03 AA016371), " Economic Consequences of Alcohol Use Disorders” (NIAAA, Grant No. R01 AA015695), "Costs and Benefits of Alcohol Services and Interventions" (NIAAA, Grant No. R01 AA13167), "Economic Evaluation of Substance Abuse Treatment in Criminal Justice Settings" (NIDA, Grant No. K01 DA013962), "Utilizing Clinical and Financial Instruments for Economic Evaluation" (NIDA, Grant No. 3P50 DA07705), "Costs and Benefits of Prison-Based Substance Abuse Treatment for Drug Abusing Offenders" (RWJF, Grant No. 041070), "Economic Evaluation Methods: Development and Applications" (NIDA, Grant No. R01 DA11506), "Economic Aspects of Alcohol Use and Abuse" (NIAAA, Grant No. K01 AA13608), "Economic Evaluation of Adolescent Treatment Services" (NIDA, Grant No. R01 DA13298), "Long Term Outcomes of Adolescents in Drug Treatment" (NIDA, Grant No. R01 DA15412), and "Economic Evaluation Methods: Development and Application" (NIDA, Grant No. 1 R01 DA018645-01A1).  Many of these projects involve multidisciplinary collaborations with government officials, program directors, clinicians, or scientists from the University of Miami and other research and academic institutions.

Sociology Research Center
Flipse Building, 1st Floor
5665 Ponce de Leon Blvd
Coral Gables, FL 33146-0719

 HERG Website

Social Epidemiology Research Group

"Intervention Among Heroin Sniffers to Prevent Injection Drug Use"

This is a $2.3 million, 5-year project supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. This grant builds upon the work completed in the previous grant "HIV-Related Risk Among New Injection Drug Users" to reduce the transmission of HIV among drug users.  This project takes the innovative approach of extending intervention research to include the primary prevention of injection among heroin sniffers who have never injected drugs.  A prospective experimental design with a nested ethnography is used.  A tri-ethnic sample of men and women who sniff heroin are randomized into two experimental interventions and one comparison group and followed at 6, 12, and 18 months to evaluate the effectiveness and sustainability of two interventions to reduce high risk sex behaviors, prevent the transition to injection and increase enrollment in drug treatment.  This design permits the simultaneous implementation and evaluation of the effectiveness of the interventions and the prospective study of the transition to injection.  The three aims of the study are:    (1) Implement, evaluate and compare the effectiveness and sustainability of two brief HIV risk interventions among heroin sniffers.  (2)  Characterize and model risk factors for the transition from heroin sniffing to injection.  (3) Estimate the prevalence and incidence of HIV among heroin sniffers.