Page 54 - SAMRC Annual Report 2024-2025

Mental Health, Alcohol,
Substance Use and Tobacco

Research Unit

Unit director:
Prof. Jason Bantjes
Jason.bantjes@mrc.ac.za

Advancing Research Priorities: Key Milestones and Achievements
Strategic Objectives and Impact MASTRU played a key role in strengthening

The Mental Health, Alcohol, Substance Use substance use surveillance and translating research
and Tobacco Research Unit’s (MASTRU) primary evidence into policy and practice on the African
objective is to advance the nation's health by continent, through initiatives such as the SACENDU
reducing harmful substance use and promoting Research Uptake and Evidence-Based Information
mental health. Examples of ongoing work include Sharing Platform. engagement with the INL Global
studying the epidemiology of substance use, Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats, and
evaluating interventions to reduce substance use, participation in the annual African Union continental
and developing novel digital interventions to consultations on Drug Demand Reduction.
promote mental health.
MASTRU established a productive international
MASTRU's tobacco-focused work included: a collaboration with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation
global survey of adult tobacco use; identifying Global Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental
context-sensitive strategies for a tobacco-free Health at the New York-based Child Mind Institute.
Africa; exploring students' exposure to electronic This collaboration aims to promote the mental
cigarette advertising; and mapping trends in health of young people in low- and middle-
tobacco control research. MASTRU worked at the
intersection of infectious diseases and substance income countries through a global mapping of
use, conducting studies to understand and the epidemiology of youth mental health, the
mitigate the links between substance use HIV, development of innovative scalable interventions,
and TB. MASTRU continued its work as part of an
international consortium across 18 countries to map
the epidemiology of mental disorders and develop
innovative scalable interventions to promote the
mental health of university students. MASTRU's work
on clinical trials expanded to include randomised
control trials of digital mental health interventions,
evaluation of a carbon emission tracking tool for
clinical trials and contributing to WHO's Global
Clinical Trials Forum. MASTRU's intervention
research included evaluating novel approaches to
address mental health and sexual violence, reduce
alcohol consumption among pregnant women, and
identifying strategies to enhance engagement with Workshop stakeholder engagement.
digital mental health apps.

52 SAMRC ANNUAL REPOR T 2024-25