The Regional Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research (RADAR) Center, Spitzer Department of Social Work, Ben Gurion University conducts education, training and research contributing to informed policy and prevention/treatment program decision-making.  The Center targets the needs of youth and young adults, women, immigrants, the elderly and others throughout the region including people in rural and remote areas.

Since 1995, the RADAR Center has promoted cooperation with the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), US Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), US Agency for International Development (USAID);  United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Israel Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Health, Education and Social Services, and major universities in the United States and Europe.

• international cooperation to address Middle East region substance use issues with the University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA), University of Southern California (USC), New York University (NYU), Rutgers University, the University of Hamburg (Germany), State University of New York – New Paltz, the University of Hong Kong, and La Trobe University (Australia);

• exchange of BGU-Rutgers University faculty and students to address the needs of high risk children and families including substance use prevention;

• completion of a major 5 year USAID–Middle East Regional Cooperation supported study of smoking cessation among Israeli and Palestinian adolescents;  

• publication of Former Soviet Union Immigrant Women: Drug Use Profiles and Special Needs in a United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Initiative edited book on gender and drug addiction (forthcoming in 2014) ;

• presentation of Toward an Understanding of Russian Speaking Female Drug Use at the NIDA Women’s Forum, San Diego, California;

• research published in professional journals addressing substance use among high risk youth, former Soviet Union and Ethiopian immigrants, women, hospitality workers, and young adults; and,

• substance use program planning and development assistance to the BGU Recanati Department of Nursing – Toby Mower Curriculum for the Prevention and Treatment of Addiction.