MAY 17, 2024
Jacob Borodovsky, PhD
Senior Research Scientist, Center for Technology and Behavioral Health and the Department of Biomedical Data Science, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
About the Presentation: The legal cannabis industry is utilizing sophisticated online advertising strategies to enhance the appeal of high-THC cannabis products. These developments pose risks to consumer safety and public health. However, there remain significant gaps in our understanding of how online point-of-sale cannabis advertising affects consumer behaviors – underscoring the need for new, innovative study designs in the field of Cannabis Regulatory Science.
This presentation will detail the development (Aim 1) and pilot testing (Aim 2) of the “Platform for Online Evaluation of Marijuana Marketing and Sales” (POEMMS), a flexible digital tool that simulates a realistic online cannabis shopping experience to study how cannabis product advertising influences consumer behaviors. In this presentation, we will first detail the iterative development stages of the POEMMS system and subsequently share results from three illustrative studies designed to isolate the impact of (1) product name recognition, (2) mental health advertising, and (3) mental health warning labels, on consumer purchase behaviors. The final part of the presentation will outline the current aims and study design for an R21 grant proposal that is being developed based on the progress and findings of this pilot project.
About the Presenters: Jacob Borodovsky is a Senior Research Scientist and Epidemiologist at CTBH and the Department of Biomedical Data Science in the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine. He received his PhD from the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice under the mentorship of Drs. Lisa Marsch, Alan Budney, and Emily Scherer. He completed his postdoctoral training at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis under the mentorship of Drs. Richard Gruzca and Laura Bierut and was awarded an NRSA F32 fellowship by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism during this time. Broadly speaking, Jake’s research interests lie at the intersection of addiction, epidemiology, statistical methods, and policy. He enjoys thinking about and trying to answer questions such as, “Why do humans use drugs?” “What is the best way to measure drug use?” and “What happens to drug use behaviors when we try to modify them with population-level regulations and individual-level interventions?” To answer these kinds of questions, Jake utilizes a range of traditional and non-traditional data collection and analysis methods and studies topics such as (1) cannabis legalization and novel methods of cannabis administration, (2) medication and technology-based treatments for opioid use disorder, (3) national patterns of co-use of alcohol and prescription central nervous system depressant medications (e.g., prescription benzodiazepines), (4) and risk behavior propensity among adolescents.
Sourish Bairaboina will join Dr. Borodovsky as a co-presenter for this talk. Sourish is a Dartmouth undergraduate senior who has been working closely with Dr. Borodovsky over the past year to develop and test the POEMMS system.