2024 Annual APA Convention

Hello and Happy Fall! We want to take this opportunity to introduce the 2023-2024 SoAP APA Program Committee: Drs. Christina Lee (Chair), Tessa Frohe (Co-Chair), Susan Collins (President-Elect), Anne Fernandez, Frank Schwebel, Melissa Schick, Lourah Kelley, and student rep: Rosie Peterson. We are honored to be working with Division 50 President, Dr. Seema Clifasefi, and with the guidance of last year’s Chair, Dr. Angela Heads, to put together a thought-provoking, scientifically informed and clinically relevant program for the upcoming 2024 APA Convention that will be hosted in Seattle, Washington.

The ongoing COVID19 pandemic highlights the ongoing public health crisis of addiction and health disparities, and to this end, the 2023-2024 SoAP Program Committee is seeking proposals on research and clinical advances addressing the Division 50 President’s theme of “Reimagining Addiction: Centering Equity and Racial Justice in Addiction Research, Treatment, and Prevention.” We hope you will consider submitting your proposals and join us for a thoughtful and open discourse to allow us to come together and share our work and ideas in service of ultimately helping those who experience substance-related harm, their loved ones, and their communities.

In keeping with this theme, we particularly encourage submission of programming for the 2024 APA Convention that includes:

• Public health approaches using structural (i.e.,policy), institutional, and individual level interventions to achieve racial health equity in addictions treatment and research 
• Preventative, intervention, and policy approaches to achieve racial justice in addiction treatment
• Addresses and minimizes socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic disparities in the experience of substance-related harms, health care, and access to care
• Community-engaged and participatory research centered on equity and racial justice
• Transdisciplinary approaches to addressing health inequities related to substance use in underserved populations
• Implementation and dissemination research to minimize health inequities related to substance use

Convention Proposal Submission details

• The 2024 Call for Convention Proposals will be posted on the APA convention website on Wednesday, November 1, 2023 with a submission deadline of Friday, December 22, 2023.
• Submissions should be relevant to the Division’s researchers and clinicians and be positioned to disseminate cutting-edge information to psychologists from other APA divisions.
• Proposals for symposia, poster presentations, data blitz, discussion sessions, and skill-building sessions will be considered. Individual paper presentations will not be considered.
• All symposium/discussion submitters are strongly encouraged to apply for Continuing Education review when submitting.
• The division offers numerous merit-based travel awards for students and early career psychologists. Priority will be given to proposals that best fit this year’s theme
• Please contact the 2024 Program Committee with questions: Div50apaprogramchair@gmail.com.