Quantitative Health Sciences Calendar

Sports betting apps, instant deposits, and 24/7 access have changed the game for today’s college students. What was once occasional or social is now fast, frequent, and often difficult to detect – leaving many students vulnerable to gambling-related harm before it’s recognized. As access expands and normalization grows, the line between “just for fun” and real harm is becoming increasingly blurred. This 90-minute webinar goes beyond the basics to examine the unique vulnerabilities of college students and the evolving culture of gambling on campus.

Meeting Registration - Zoom

This webinar will introduce researchers to opportunities for conducting causal inference studies using the Osteoarthritis Initiative’s rich longitudinal clinical, imaging, medication, behavioral, and patient-reported data. The presentation will highlight practical considerations for defining research questions, selecting analytic samples and time-varying measures, addressing confounding and missing data, and choosing appropriate causal inference methods.

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For questions, contact the OAI CORE Team at oaiknowledgebase@umassmed.edu

Speaker: Aanand D. Naik, MD, Professor and Chair, Management, Policy and Community Health, Associate Dean for Learning and Health Systems, Director, Institute on Aging, Nancy P. and Vincent F. Guinee, MD Distinguished Chair, and Uzi and Micki Halevey and Carmel Dyer, MD Interprofessional Research Fellowship, School of Public Health, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX

Zoom: https://umassboston.zoom.us/j/94175483404, Password: Boston

Alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the US. People with Alcohol Use Disorder are at highest risk due to greater alcohol exposure and when combined with smoking, cancer risk can increase exponentially. This webinar explores the relationship between alcohol and cancer, highlighting biological and behavioral connections, and the lived experiences of people who suffer from both conditions. Addiction counseling considerations for cancer patients or cancer survivors will also be addressed.

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This webinar will provide participants with an overview of the federal and state regulatory landscape governing hemp-derived cannabinoids, including emerging efforts to address regulatory loopholes and recent legislative actions. Participants will explore the pharmacology and health effects of synthetic cannabinoids and hemp-derived THC products, review current public health surveillance data and poison center trends, and examine the short- and long-term medical and psychiatric consequences associated with use, including intoxication, overdose, and psychosis.

Meeting Registration - Zoom

Prediction markets—platforms where participants trade on the likelihood of future events—are often framed as tools for aggregating information and improving forecasts. However, they share structural similarities with gambling environments, including real-money stakes, rapid feedback loops, and uncertainty-based rewards. Participants will be provided with foundational information on problem gambling, warning signs, and impacts on individuals and loved ones. Additionally, focus areas will include where the line between forecasting and gambling begins to blur, and why that distinction matters for public health and policy.

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