The limited availability of medication-assisted treatment has created a treatment gap leaving many opioid dependent individuals without access to appropriate treatment. Survey data from a national random sample of 545 addictions physicians with waivers to provide buprenorphine treatment under The Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000 are presented. During the first year, an estimated 63,204 opioid dependent patients were treated with buprenorphine; many were dependent on prescription opioids and were new to drug treatment. Prescribing physicians reported high treatment effectiveness and patient satisfaction, with minimal adverse reactions or evidence of diversion. However, many waivered physicians had not provided buprenorphine treatment. Prescribers identified challenges such as induction logistics, recordkeeping requirements, the 30-patient limit, DEA involvement, and limited patient compliance. Buprenorphine treatment could potentially reduce the treatment gap by providing safe and effective treatment for opioid dependence and by attracting patients who do not typically seek care at opioid treatment programs.

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Participation in community-based self-management education and physical activity interventions has been demonstrated to improve quality of life for those who have arthritis and other chronic diseases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Arthritis Program funded 21 state health departments to expand the reach (defined as the number of people who participate in interventions) of 10 evidence-based interventions in community settings. The Arthritis Centralized Evaluation assessed the strategies and tactics used by state health departments to expand the reach of these evidence-based interventions. The evaluation compared and contrasted processes used by the states to expand reach. Engaging multisite delivery system partners, prioritizing reach, embedding interventions within partners' routine operations, and collaborating across chronic disease program areas were all dissemination strategies that were correlated with expanded intervention reach. However, states also encountered challenges that limited their ability to successfully engage delivery systems as partners. These barriers included difficulty identifying delivery system partners and the lengthy time periods partners needed to adopt and embed the interventions.

Social Stress and Eating Behavior Bauer (1971) took Schachter (1971) to task for failing to consider the social stresses placed on the obese individual. She suggested that these stresses would have the effect of making the fat person dependent on external cues to evaluate his behavior.The results of my doctoral dissertation (Abramson, 1971), currently being prepared for publication, pertain to the issues raised by Bauer. Briefly, obese and normal weight subjects were exposed to experimental treatments, intended to arouse objective fear or interpersonal anxiety, or to a nonstress control procedure. The cracker "tasting" procedure devised by Schachter, Goldman, and Gordon (1968) was used to measure food consumption. Each subject sat alone in a closed room "rating" five different types of crackers on a variety of taste dimensions for IS minutes. A total of ISO crackers was provided for each subject. This procedure would seem to satisfy Bauer's methodological criticisms since there was ample opportunity for gluttony with little likelihood of making an observable dent in the number of crackers remaining.Bauer's speculations would suggest that the social stress of the interpersonal anxiety treatment should result in decreased cracker consumption when compared with the control group. Although there was considerable evidence indicating that the experimental treatments had been successful in arousing anxiety, the results did not reveal any significant differences in cracker consumption. These findings would cast considerable doubt on the postulated relationship between social stress and the eating behavior of obese individuals.