The use of epidemiologic methods has been widely applied in the fields of medicine and mental health to describe patterns of diseases occurrence, identify etiologic factors, and examine the effectiveness of prevention strategies. However, substance use disorders and dual diagnosis disorders are still poorly understood. Future advances in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment for these illnesses will possibly rely heavily on current innovations in methods and discoveries of risk modifiers through epidemiologic research.

We invite authors to submit original research and review articles that address substance use and dual diagnosis disorders as well as methodological contributions that introduce novel approaches.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Role of trauma in substance use disorders
• Role of trauma in dual diagnosis disorders
• Ethnic factors in substance use and dual diagnosis
• Psychosocial therapies in management of substance use and dual diagnosis disorders
• Genetic epidemiological methods to study substance use and dual diagnosis disorders
• Youth, homelessness, and gender in substance use and dual diagnosis
• National and international substance use policies
• New methods to counter confounding effects and bias
• New methods to assess quality of epidemiological study