Research Interests
Since 1996, Dr. Smith’s practice and research experience has focused on treating and preventing substance use disorders. He has practice experience with varied substance misusing populations including: adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system, adults addicted to crack cocaine, and addicted mothers involved with child welfare. Dr. Smith is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and has experience implementing numerous empirically-supported treatments, including: Motivational Interviewing, the Community Reinforcement Approach, The Seven Challenges®, and Strengths Oriented Family Therapy (SOFT). His research currently focuses on what treatments work best for adolescents and young adults with substance use disorders. For example, with generous support from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), he is developing a peer-enhanced treatment for use with young adults with alcohol problems. Additionally, he is interesting in studying the effects of Motivational Interviewing among adolescents with alcohol and other substance use disorders. Because of his productivity in these two areas, he was awarded the Deborah K. Padgett Early Career Achievement Award in 2012 from the Society for Social Work and Research.
Education
BS, Psychology, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, 1996
MSW, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, 2000
PhD, Social Work, University of Iowa, 2006
Additional Campus Affiliations
Director, Center for Prevention Research & Development (CPRD), School of Social Work
Professor, School of Social Work
Professor, Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies
Professor, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Recent Publications
Smith, D. C., Evans, J. M., Reinhart, C. A., Taylor, S. E., Begum, S., & Jenkins, K. V. (2024). Adolescent Perceptions of Substance Use Problem Resolution and Recovery. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 42(2), 168-178. https://doi.org/10.1080/07347324.2023.2292028
Clary, K. L., Pena, S., & Smith, D. C. (2023). Masculinity and stigma among emerging adult military members and veterans: implications for encouraging help-seeking. Current Psychology, 42(6), 4422-4438. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01768-7
Kosgolla, J. V., Smith, D. C., Begum, S., & Reinhart, C. A. (2023). Assessing the self-reported honesty threshold in adolescent epidemiological research: comparing supervised machine learning and inferential statistical techniques. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 23(1), Article 210. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-023-02035-y
Smith, D. C., Reinhart, C. A., Begum, S., Kosgolla, J., Kelly, J. F., Bergman, B. B., & Basic, M. (2023). Coming of age in recovery: The prevalence and correlates of substance use recovery status among adolescents and emerging adults. PloS one, 18(12 December), Article e0295330. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295330
Barton, A. W., Gong, Q., Sutton, N. C., Davis, J. P., & Smith, D. C. (2022). Adolescent Substance Use and Individual Beliefs That Drug Use Is Wrong: A Statewide Epidemiological Study. Substance Use and Misuse, 57(4), 640-648. https://doi.org/10.1080/10826084.2022.2034877