Denise B. Kandel, PhD

  • Professor of Sociomedical Sciences (in Psychiatry)
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Overview

Denise Kandel, PhD., Head of the Department of Epidemiology of Substance Abuse at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, Professor of Sociomedical Sciences and Psychiatry at Columbia University. Major interests: the epidemiology, risk factors, and consequences of drug use, in particular smoking and prescription opioid use; the epidemiology of substance dependence; developmental pathways of problem behaviors in adolescence; the intergenerational transmission of deviance; animal models of epidemiological paradigms.

Current research activities focus on five areas: 1) the epidemiology of prescription opioid use and mortality; 2) the Gateway Hypothesis of drug involvement; 3) the intergenerational effects of parental drug use on child drug behavior and development; 4) epidemiology of post-traumatic stress disorder; 5) animal models of the Gateway Hypothesis.

Academic Appointments

  • Professor of Sociomedical Sciences (in Psychiatry)

Gender

  • Female

Research

The epidemiology, risk factors, and consequences of drug use, in particular smoking and prescription opioid use; the epidemiology of substance dependence; developmental pathways of problem behaviors in adolescence; the intergenerational transmission of deviance; animal models of epidemiological paradigms.

Current research activities focus on five areas: 1) the epidemiology of prescription opioid use and mortality; 2) the Gateway Hypothesis of drug involvement; 3) the intergenerational effects of parental drug use on child drug behavior and development; 4) epidemiology of post-traumatic stress disorder; 5) animal models of the Gateway Hypothesis.

Selected Publications

  • Kandel DB: Stages and Pathways of Drug Involvement: Examining the Gateway Hypothesis, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 2002
  • Hu M-C, Griesler P, Schaffran C, Kandel DB: Risk and Protective Factors for Nicotine Dependence in Adolescence. J Child Psychol & Psychiatry 2011;52: 1063-1072
  • Levine A, Huang YY, Disraldi B, Griffin Jr E, Pollak DD, Xu S, Yin D, Schaffran C, Kandel DB, Kandel ER: Molecular Mechanism for a Gateway Drug: Epigenetic Changes Initiated by Nicotine Prime Gene Expression by Cocaine. Sci Trans Med 2011;3: 107ra109
  • Koob G, Kandel DB, Baler RD, Volkow N: Pathophysiology of Addiction, John Wiley & Sons, West Sussex, England, 2015
  • Kandel ER, Kandel DB: Shattuck Lecture: A Basis for Nicotine as a Gateway Drug. NEJM 2014;371: 932-943
  • Kandel DB, Hu MC, Griesler P, Wall, M: Increases From 2002 to 2015 in Prescription Opioid Overdose Deaths in Combination with Other Substances. Drug & Alc Depend 2017;178: 501-511
  • Wall M, Cheslack-Postava K, Hu MC, Feng T, Griesler P, Kandel DB: Nonmedical Prescription Opioids and Pathways of Drug Involvement in the US: Generational Differences. Drug & Alc Depend 2018;182: 103-111
  • Griesler PC, Hu MC, Wall MM, Kandel DB: Medical Use and Misuse of Prescription Opioids in the US Population: 2016-2017. Am J Pub Health 2019;109: 1258-1265
  • Griesler PC, Hu MC, Wall MM, Kandel DB: Nonmedical Prescription Opioid Use by Parents and Adolescents in the US. Pediatrics 2019;143: e20182354