CALL FOR ABSTRACTS — 140th APHA Annual Meeting

Theme: Prevention and Wellness Across the Lifespan

Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs

Submission Deadline: Monday, February 6, 2012

Fourth Annual Student Poster Showcase and Award:

The ATOD Section also invites abstract submissions from students for the Fourth Annual Student Poster Award. Students who submit abstracts to the Student Poster Showcase session will be considered for inclusion in a special poster session presenting selected posters, with monetary awards being given to top finalists. See http://www.apha.org/membergroups/sections/aphasections/atod/ for more information. (Abstracts not selected for the Student Poster Showcase will be considered for other sessions as appropriate.)

Topics of Particular Interest Include:

• ATOD-Co-morbidities, Integration of Services
  
• ATOD-Evaluation Methodology and Approaches
  
• ATOD-Health Care Reform, Access, and Parity
  
• AWARD: Student Poster Showcase - Abstracts submitted to this session will be considered for a student award
  
• Alcohol-Environmental Approaches, Policy and Advocacy
  
• Alcohol-Epidemiology
  
• Alcohol-Social Determinants, Disparities and Priority Populations
  
• Alcohol-Treatment and Health Services Research
  
• Alcohol-other
  
• Community Based Approaches to ATOD Problems
  
• Health Care Reform, Access and Parity
  
• SBIRT/Screening & Referral in applied settings
  
• Science to Service/Research to Practice-Research in Applied Settings
  
• Tobacco-Cessation- Individual
  
• Tobacco-Cessation-Systems Change
  
• Tobacco-Communications/Media
  
• Tobacco-Policy and Advocacy
  
• Tobacco-Prevention
  
• Tobacco-Second Hand Smoke
  
• Tobacco-Youth
  
• Tobacco-other
  
• Other Drugs-General
  
• Other Drugs-Policy and Advocacy
  
• Other Drugs-Prescription Drugs
  
• Other Drugs-Prevention
  
• Other Drugs-Treatment
  

Abstracts are evaluated on:

1) Importance and relevance: Does the presentation provide new findings and/or innovative ideas with significant impact on policy, practice or advocacy in the ATOD field?

2) Methodological/project soundness: Is the methodology sound, clearly stated, and appropriate to the topic or project? Are the sample and data and/or the population and community information recent, representative, unbiased and of adequate size?

3) Adherence to specified format and clarity: Is the content communicated in a clear, logical, and understandable way?

4) Contribution to science and/or practice and relation to ATOD Section priorities. Abstracts that do not make this clear are usually ranked lower by reviewers, due to incomplete information. Topical sessions are then assembled from high-ranked abstracts. Please note that APHA suggests the program include only one presentation by any individual, and the ATOD Section endeavors to abide by this guideline.  

Session Proposals:

Session proposals are generally not encouraged due to limited space and are rarely approved as submitted. If you desire to submit a session proposal, contact the Program Chair, Linda J. Frazier, at ljfatodprogram@gmail.com to ask for a session designation. Please allow at least one week for a response to such requests. Session proposals will be ranked in competition with separately submitted abstracts, and the topic will be weighed against the topics of interest for the Annual Meeting, as well as the topics addressed in separately submitted abstracts. Session proposals must be completed as directed. The Program Committee reserves the right to break session proposals apart and consider the individual abstracts separately without prior notification to the session organizer.

Acceptance/Rejection Notices:

Notification of acceptance or rejection for all abstracts submitted is sent in May or June by e-mail to the contact person designated in the abstract submission. Presenters are notified of date, time, and location of their sessions during the summer. Should you withdraw an accepted abstract, the Program Chair will select a replacement; please do not provide a substitute. Information detailing the ATOD Section’s Preliminary Program and Final Program will be available on the ATOD Section Website and copies of the Final ATOD Section Program including locations and last-minute changes will be available at the ATOD Section Booth. Should your abstract be chosen, you will be expected to complete the Conflict of Interest Disclosure statement as directed and in a timely fashion. All presenters must be members of APHA and register for the meeting. Learning Objectives for accepted oral sessions must meet standards for continuing education approval so that the ATOD section program may offer CEU credits for all oral sessions.  

Continuing Education Credit

APHA values the ability to provide continuing education credit to physicians, nurses, health educators and those certified in public health at its annual meeting. Please complete all required information when submitting an abstract so members can claim credit for attending your session. These credits are necessary for members to keep their licenses and credentials.

For a session to be eligible for Continuing Education Credit, each presenter must provide:

1) an abstract free of trade and/or commercial product names

2) at least one MEASURABLE objective (DO NOT USE understand or to learn as objectives, they are not measureable).

Examples of Acceptable Measurable Action Words: Explain, Demonstrate, Analyze, Formulate, Discuss, Compare, Differentiate, Describe, Name, Assess, Evaluate, Identify, Design, Define or List.

3) A signed Conflict of Interest (Disclosure) form with a relevant Qualification Statement. See an example of an acceptable Qualification Statement on the online Disclosure form. Thank you for your assistance in making your session credit worthy.

Contact Annette Ferebee at annette.ferebee@apha.org if you have any questions concerning continuing education credit. Contact the program planner for all other questions.