VCU’s Center for the Study of Tobacco Products receives nearly $20 million grant

LOGAN REARDON Staff Writer

The Center for the Study of Tobacco Products at VCU received a nearly $20 million grant for a five-year project focused on predicting the outcomes of government regulations on tobacco products, such as e-cigarettes.

The grant was awarded by the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration Center for Tobacco Products.

Michael Southam-Gerow, chair and director of graduate studies in the Department of Psychology, said the grant helps CSTP have an impact on public health around the world.

“The Center for the Study of Tobacco Products is already a world leader in helping policymakers and the public understand how emerging tobacco products work on the body and what their longer-term impacts are on physical and behavioral health,” Southam-Gerow said. “The new project lets them continue and expand on this work.”

CSTP is one of nine Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science across the country that provide research to the FDA in efforts to ensure U.S. tobacco regulations are supported by scientific evidence.

CSTP director and VCU psychology professor Thomas Eissenberg said the goal of the study is to give the FDA tools to predict whether certain tobacco-related regulations would be helpful and if they have unintended consequences.

“We’re trying to inform regulations that protect the health of nonsmokers who might be encouraged by marketing to try electronic cigarettes or other tobacco products,” Eissenberg said. “And also protect the health of smokers by making sure that if they were to use an electronic cigarette in an attempt to get off tobacco cigarettes, that they’re not using something that is also harmful to their health.”

The illegal sale of e-cigarette products to minors has been a major part in the FDA’s push for further regulation. Al - though the FDA’s data shows an overall decline in tobacco use among teenagers between 2011 and 2017, e-cigarette usage surged from 1.5 percent to 11.7 percent in the same time span.

According to Alison Breland, co-principal investigator for the grant and assistant research professor in the Department of Psychology, this project’s goal is to help the FDA find regulations that protect public health and decrease teen e-cigarette use.

In 2013, CSTP received a five-year, $18.3 million grant to create evaluation methods to help inform regulatory policy for tobacco products.

According to Montserrat Fuentes, dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences, the 2013 grant “provided numerous opportunities to VCU students for engagement in experiential learning while applying their knowledge to significant social problems.”

The FDA announced Sept. 14 that Juul and other e-cigarette companies must provide ways to keep these products out of minor’s hands. If these companies do not comply within the 60 days, they could be forced to take flavored e-cigarette products off the market.

VCU junior Ryan Carter — who occasionally uses an e-cigarette — said there could be more effective options to the rising use of e-cigarettes in teens.

“I think there might be a way to take it down by levels,” Carter said. “It might be what’s necessary, but I don’t think it’s what would be the best decision.”

Carter also said although he hasn’t seen the numbers yet, he thinks minor usage of e-cigarettes right now is not as much of a problem as people might think.

“It might be a growing problem, but for now I think we’re good,” Carter said.

According to a press release by VCU Public Affairs, the new grant does not include taxpayer money. The funding comes from an FDA law requiring tobacco companies to provide money to support regulatory action.

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT + DRUG ABUSE

SEBASTIAN GRANT

Contributing Writer

Lower academic achievement could be associated with future drug abuse, according to research conducted by a VCU professor in the Department of Psychiatry.

Dr. Kenneth Kendler — who is also a psychiatric researcher with the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics — had his recent studies published in JAMA Psychiatry, a publication belonging to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Multiple professionals from Sweden’s Lund University and Karolinska Institute — who Kendler considers experts and very close colleagues — networked to conduct the study which found that “lower [academic achievement] had a significant association with risk of subsequent [drug abuse].”

Data analysis was conducted on over 930,000 participants, for more than 15 years. The team examined registries from Sweden, where school is mandatory for children between the ages of 7 and 16. Swedish medical, criminal and pharmacy registries were used to identify individuals who suffer from drug abuse.

The results suggested academic achievement at 16 years of age and risk of drug abuse into middle adulthood had a potentially causal relationship.

“These results provide empirical support for efforts to improve [academic achievement] as a means to reduce risk of [drug abuse],” the report stated. “Students who succeed academically tend to develop positive attachments to school, facilitating their commitment to prosocial lifestyles that reduce risk of [drug abuse]. Those who lack this bond are more prone to deviant behaviors.”

The researchers deemed these findings important, in part because of the need for the implementation of better, cost-efficient drug abuse prevention. The study also concluded that programs which improve academic achievement during adolescence would result in substantial reductions in the risk of long-term drug abuse.

There were also some personal motivations behind the study, according to Kendler.

“I’m trained in psychiatry,” Kendler said. “I certainly have seen a number of patients, and also some friends, whose lives have been very seriously derailed by drug abuse.”

Kendler said it has been very difficult to find effective prevention for drug abuse in the past. That is what he said made this project exciting — being able to access a vast well of data was helpful in drawing legitimate conclusions about the nature of drug abuse.

Kendler said theories exist arguing that drug abuse is an infectious disease, and he wants to work toward validating or disproving those claims.

“We’re actually trying to develop and potentially collaborate with people who have mathematical models for the opioid epidemic that have been based on infectious disease models and apply that to drug abuse data in Sweden,” Kendler said.

In the future, Kendler said this team has plans to continue studying the data already at their disposal to further understand drug abuse.

“If you think hard,” Kendler said, “There are often ways of using data that we already have to be able to answer really important questions about the nature and treatment of psychiatric drug abuse disorders with a great deal of scientific rigor.”

934,462 individuals were studied for a mean period of 19 years to observe the e ects of academic achievement (AA, expressed through grade scores) on risk of future drug abuse (DA).

According to the study, increasing academic achievement by one grade score at age 16 should decrease the long-term risk of drug abuse by approximately 45 percent

“Academic Achievement and Drug Abuse Risk Assessed Using Instrumental Variable Analysis and Co-relative Designs,” published in JAMA Psychiatry

Infographic by Jiff Smifth

NAOMI GHAHRAI Contributing Writer

The Henrico County Division of Fire, in partnership with the Weil Institute of Emergency and Critical Care Research at VCU, will host an emergency medical services event on managing left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) and total artificial heart (TAH) patients Sept. 29.

LVADs and TAHs are mechanical circulatory support devices used as treatment options for heart failure patients. LVADs are pumps implanted in a patient’s abdomen and attached to the heart in order to help pump blood from the left ventricle to the aorta — the main mechanism for carrying oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body. TAHs fully replace the heart in cases of biventricular failure.

VCU is one of the national leaders in TAH implants, said Dr. Joseph Ornato, department chairman of emergency medicine at VCU Medical Center and medical director of the Richmond and Henrico fire departments.

“This event is a giant step in the new national standard of training, and I am excited to provide for the Richmond community,” Ornato said.

The Joint Commission, a non-profit organization accrediting and certifying healthcare programs, awarded VCU Medical Center’s VAD program its gold seal of approval in 2008.

Nonprofit CEOs who opt for lower pay lead more effective organizations

SARAH ELSON

Contributing Writer

Nonprofit CEOs who choose to have lower-paying salaries than their colleagues run organizations that serve community members more positively, according to research conducted by two professors in the VCU School of Business.

The study, co-authored by Christopher Reina and Joseph Coombs, was published in the Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs. Titled “Serving Others at the Expense of Self: The Relationship between Nonprofit CEO Compensation and Performance in Trade and Professional Associations,” it was co-conducted by Marina Saitgalina and Andrew Bennett, two assistant professors from Old Dominion University, the latter of whom is a VCU School of Business alumnus.

The sample for the study was taken from the 2010 Association Executive Compensation Benefits survey, conducted by the American Society of Association Executives.

“Because [the study is] observational and because we used data that was already existing, it’s hard to draw definitive conclusions of whether people who make less money actually have firms that perform less, or better,” Reina said. “But, we see a trend in that those firms in which we see a CEO that makes less money than some of their peers are performing better when it comes to the number of individuals served.”

This means a causal relationship was not established by the study, therefore it should not be assumed that all companies with CEOs who are paid less will have an increase in productivity.

These devices “are more common than [they] used to be,” said paramedic and EMS instructor Johnna Chandler. “You would be surprised how many people actually have them and you do not even realize it.”

The percentage of U.S. heart failure patients 75 and older with LVADs rose from three percent in 2003 to 11 percent in 2014, as reported by Mitchel Doler in The Hospitalist, a newsmagazine of the Society of Hospital Medicine.

At the event, participants will rotate through a series of stations including lectures and hands-on experience with volunteer LVAD or TAH patients.

Ornato, along with VCU Health cardiologist Dr. Mary Ann Peberdy, organized the event with the support of several VCU and Richmond health organizations.

“I would probably attend this event because it seems really interesting and I’ve never seen this type of patient in the field,” said Liz Lott, a student and Virginia Beach emergency medical technician.

According to Dr. Stephanie Louka — a clinical instructor in the VCU Department of Emergency Medicine — as of 2015, American Heart Association guidelines for cardiovascular life support did not include information on the assessment and treatment of an unconscious mechanical assist device patient. The guidelines for administering chest compressions — an essential part of CPR — were ambiguous and different hospitals and EMS

Freshman business student Jake Saar said he was not surprised to hear the result.

“I guess that’s normal, [CEOs] get paid relatively the same; some are actually good people and put it back to the community,” Saar said.

Student Aisha Khalifa, also a freshman in the business school, said she had concerns regarding the fairness of lower CEO compensation.

“It’s good that [the CEOs] serve more people in the community when they earn less, but it can be unfair to them because they could be working hard,” Khalifa said. “I think they should be paid according to the amount of time and effort they dedicate to their job.”

During the study, Reina sought to answer the questions of if making information on lower CEO salaries publicly available results in social capital, and if this results in an increased desire for involvement in the organization and improved performance.

Reina said a lower income may not be a significant factor in helping an organization if the CEO truly cares about the organization’s cause more than the compensation.

“If you are knowingly making less and you go into the nonprofit sector,” Reina said, “theoretically it should be less about money and more about making a difference.” systems diverged in their treatment of unresponsive mechanical assist device patients.

In 2017, the American Heart Association published a detailed, evidence-based approach for unconscious or cardiac-arresting patients with mechanical assist devices. These findings helped shape better guidelines for supporting patients with LVADs and TAHs.

“VCU remains actively engaged in being at the forefront of advanced therapies for end-stage heart failure,” said Dr. Daniel Tang, VCU Health Pauley Heart Center cardiothoracic surgeon.

The EMS education training will be held at the Henrico Fire training center on East Parham Road. Only 100 certified EMS providers — with priority given to paramedics — can attend Sept. 29, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Certified EMS students can register for this event at ctcce.vcu.edu.

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