The HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study's Scientific Training in Addiction Research Techniques Program (HBCD-START)

National and global substance misuse challenges require sustainable pipelines of elite investigators with a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives, and talents. Many scholars have limited access to the early enrichment, rigorous training, effective mentoring, nourishing environments, and financial support necessary to become drug misuse scientists. Scholars who struggle early in their training often experience domino effects throughout their career which adversely impact employment, tenure qualifications, and other aspects of academic life. It is essential that we arrest these trends by developing optimal training programs for the most promising clinical scientists. To that end, we propose a comprehensive research education program titled “The HEALthy Brain Child Development Study’s Scientific Training in Addiction Research Techniques Program (HBCD-START),” which specifically prepares investigators to access, analyze, and disseminate data from the HBCD study through both mentored research experiences and didactic skill-building courses. The HBCD Study is a notably large, multi-modal, longitudinal study of brain and mental development in infants and children and uses an “open science” framework to make all data publicly available. Trainees will complete coursework to support their professional development and will complete an independent, mentored research project using HBCD data. START scholars will present and publish their scientific findings, and a comprehensive program evaluation will monitor trainees, mentors, and the program as a whole. The overarching goal of HBCD START is to create a strong pipeline of substance misuse clinical researchers who are trained in the analysis and dissemination of data from the HBCD study. This study is part of the NIH’s Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) initiative to speed scientific solutions to the national opioid public health crisis. The NIH HEAL Initiative bolsters research across NIH to improve treatment for opioid misuse and addiction.