{"id":18461,"date":"2025-01-11T17:37:01","date_gmt":"2025-01-11T16:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=18461"},"modified":"2025-05-11T16:19:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T15:19:05","slug":"ai-can-help-us-choose-words-more-carefully-when-talking-about-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2025\/01\/ai-can-help-us-choose-words-more-carefully-when-talking-about-addiction\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Can Help Us Choose Words More Carefully When Talking About Addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"layout-columns page-segment page-segment--sidebar-leads layout-columns--30-70\">\n<div class=\"layout-columns__col page-segment__body\">\n<div class=\"article-title-card\">\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #ff00ff;\"><span><strong>COMMENT BY NATIONAL DRUG PREVENTION ALLIANCE ON THE ARTICLE BY DREXEL &#8211; 15 DECEMBER 2024<\/strong>:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>\u00a0NDPA has significant reservations about his article. Drexel (a &#8216;private university&#8217; in Philadelphia) are asserting that all drug use is stigmatised ,and that such stigmatisation as they observe should be negated. But other specialists in the field counter by giving comments on stigma\/human behaviour etc, <\/strong><\/span><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>as follows:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>There is no doubt that language which stigmatises a situation or a person is something to be avoided, and there should be an un-stigmatised opening for people to access healthful interventions, but<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>Drug use and addiction is a \u2018chicken and egg\u2019 situation, and<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>Writers like this one start half way through the situation, when a person has made a decision to stop being a \u2018drug-free\u2019 person; they are already moving down a path which can lead to consequences which were not what they wanted when deciding to use, so<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>They are already a user, and what one might call the \u2018pre-addictive\u2019 stage is ignored. Addicted users are portrayed as no less or more than victims, seduced by profiteering suppliers, which<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>Circumvents the initial chapter in the story i.e. the stage in which a person decides to use a substance which<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>In retrospect ca be seen as a bad decision, which should be the target of productive prevention. This is<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>\u2018pre the event\u2019 \u2013 the heart of the word \u2018prevention\u2019 which in its Latin-base (\u2018praevenire&#8217;) means \u2018to come before\u2019 \u2013 not to come \u2018during\u2019!<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>Take the following paragraph in this paper:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong><em>\u201cAwareness of\u00a0<a style=\"color: #ff00ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/magazine.medlineplus.gov\/article\/a-better-way-to-say-that-stigmatizing-language-affects-how-we-treat-addiction\">stigma as an impediment to treatment<\/a>\u00a0has grown in the last two decades. In the wake of America\u2019s opioid epidemic \u2014\u00a0<a style=\"color: #ff00ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2017\/10\/30\/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain\">when strategic, deceitful marketing, promotion and overprescription of addictive painkillers resulted in millions of individuals unwittingly becoming addicted<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the general public began to\u00a0<a style=\"color: #ff00ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/nida.nih.gov\/publications\/drugs-brains-behavior-science-addiction\/drug-misuse-addiction\">recognize addiction as a disease<\/a>\u00a0to be treated, rather than a moral failure to be punished \u2014 as it was\u00a0<a style=\"color: #ff00ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2021\/06\/17\/1006495476\/after-50-years-of-the-war-on-drugs-what-good-is-it-doing-for-us\">often portrayed during the \u201cWar on Drugs\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in the 1970s and \u201880s\u201d.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>Whilst we can harmonise with the authors of this paper in seeking to remove \u2018<em><a style=\"color: #ff00ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/magazine.medlineplus.gov\/article\/a-better-way-to-say-that-stigmatizing-language-affects-how-we-treat-addiction\">stigma as an impediment to treatment<\/a><\/em>\u2019, we part company with them when they classify all addicts as \u2018unwitting victims of deceitful marketing and promotion\u2019. The simple fact is that they made a bad decision, for whatever reason \u2026 in some cases suckered, yes, or in other cases not looking down that road and its consequences on themselves and others around them (\u2018short termism\u2019) \u2013 this was not a \u2018moral \u00a0wrong\u2019, it was what it was.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>Prevention should therefore assist people to make healthful decisions \u2013 the kind of decision which countless former users make for themselves, thereby moving themselves off the \u2018pre-addictive\u2019 road onto a healthful one.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>This paper does not include this wider picture, and is the less for that.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\">&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;NDPA&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>DREXEL PRIVATE UNIVERSITY TEXT:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">December 11, 2024<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"layout-columns page-segment page-segment--sidebar-leads layout-columns--30-70\">\n<div class=\"layout-columns__col page-segment__sidebar\">\n<div class=\"more-like-this\">\n<div class=\"more-like-this__title\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"more-like-this__image\">Researchers from Drexel&#8217;s College of Computing &amp; Informatics have created large language model program that can help people avoid using language online that creates stigma around substance use disorder.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"layout-columns__col page-segment__body\">\n<div class=\"rich-text \">\n<p>Drug addiction has been one of America\u2019s growing\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/05\/31\/us-addiction-crisis-drug-use-disorder-mental-illness\">public health concerns<\/a>\u00a0for decades. Despite the development of effective treatments and support resources, few people who are suffering from a substance use disorder seek help. Reluctance to seek help\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aamc.org\/news\/end-drug-crisis-bring-addiction-out-shadows\">has been attributed to the stigma<\/a>\u00a0often attached to the condition. So, in an effort to address this problem, researchers at Drexel University are raising awareness of the stigmatizing language present in online forums and they have created an artificial intelligence tool to help educate users and offer alternative language.<\/p>\n<p>Presented at the recent\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/underline.io\/events\/469\/posters\/18794\/poster\/107322-words-matter-reducing-stigma-in-online-conversations-about-substance-use-with-large-language-models\">Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP)<\/a>, the tool uses large language models (LLMs), such as GPT-4 and Llama to identify stigmatizing language and suggest alternative wording \u2014 the way spelling and grammar checking programs flag typos.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStigmatized language is so engrained that people often don\u2019t even know they\u2019re doing it,\u201d said\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/drexel.edu\/cci\/about\/directory\/R\/Rezapour-Shadi\/\">Shadi Rezapour, PhD<\/a>, an assistant professor in the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/drexel.edu\/cci\/\">College of Computing &amp; Informatics<\/a>\u00a0who leads Drexel\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.shadirezapour.com\/\">Social NLP Lab<\/a>, and the research that developed the tool. \u201cWords that attack the person, rather than the disease of addiction, only serve to further isolate individuals who are suffering \u2014 making it difficult for them to come to grips with the affliction and seek the help they need. Addressing stigmatizing language in online communities is a key first step to educating the public and reducing its use.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.samhsa.gov\/newsroom\/press-announcements\/20230104\/samhsa-announces-nsduh-results-detailing-mental-illness-substance-use-levels-2021\">only 7%<\/a>\u00a0of people living with substance use disorder receive any form of treatment, despite\u00a0<a href=\"chrome-extension:\/\/efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj\/https:\/www.whitehouse.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/FY-2025-Budget-Highlights.pdf\">tens of billions of dollars being allocated to support treatment and recovery programs<\/a>. Studies show that people who felt they needed treatment\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.samhsa.gov\/data\/report\/2021-nsduh-annual-national-report\">did not seek it<\/a>\u00a0for fear of being stigmatized.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFraming addiction as a weakness or failure is neither accurate nor helpful as our society attempts to address this public health crisis,\u201d Rezapour said. \u201cPeople who have fallen victim in America suffer both from their addiction, as well as a social stigma that has formed around it. As a result, few people seek help, despite significant resources being committed to addiction recovery in recent decades.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Awareness of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/magazine.medlineplus.gov\/article\/a-better-way-to-say-that-stigmatizing-language-affects-how-we-treat-addiction\">stigma as an impediment to treatment<\/a>\u00a0has grown in the last two decades. In the wake of America\u2019s opioid epidemic \u2014\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2017\/10\/30\/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain\">when strategic, deceitful marketing, promotion and overprescription of addictive painkillers resulted in millions of individuals unwittingly becoming addicted<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the general public began to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nida.nih.gov\/publications\/drugs-brains-behavior-science-addiction\/drug-misuse-addiction\">recognize addiction as a disease<\/a>\u00a0to be treated, rather than a moral failure to be punished \u2014 as it was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2021\/06\/17\/1006495476\/after-50-years-of-the-war-on-drugs-what-good-is-it-doing-for-us\">often portrayed during the \u201cWar on Drugs\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in the 1970s and \u201880s.<\/p>\n<p>But according to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/stacks.cdc.gov\/view\/cdc\/150372#:~:text=and%20Reddit%2C%20respectively.-,Conclusions%3A,stigmatizing%20language%20on%20social%20media.#:~:text=and%20Reddit%2C%20respectively.-,Conclusions%3A,stigmatizing%20language%20on%20social%20media.\">a study<\/a>\u00a0by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while stigmatizing language in traditional media has decreased over time, its use on social media platforms has increased. The Drexel researchers suggest that encountering such language in an online forum can be particularly harmful because people often turn to these communities to seek comfort and support.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDespite the potential for support, the digital space can mirror and magnify the very societal stigmas it has the power to dismantle, affecting individuals\u2019 mental health and recovery process adversely,\u201d Rezapour said. \u201cOur objective was to develop a framework that could help to preserve these supportive spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By harnessing the power of LLMs \u2014 the machine learning systems that power chatbots, spelling and grammar checkers, and word suggestion tools\u2014\u00a0the researchers developed a framework that could potentially help digital forum users become more aware of how their word choices might affect fellow community members suffering from substance use disorder.<\/p>\n<p>To do it, they first set out to understand the forms that stigmatizing language takes on digital forums. The team used manually annotated posts to evaluate an LLM\u2019s ability to detect and revise problematic language patterns in online discussions about substance abuse.<\/p>\n<p>Once it has able to classify language to a high degree of accuracy, they employed it on more than 1.2 million posts from four popular Reddit forums. The model identified more than 3,000 posts with some form of stigmatizing language toward people with substance use disorder.<\/p>\n<p>Using this dataset as a guide, the team prepared its GPT-4 LLM to become an agent of change. Incorporating non-stigmatizing language guidance from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the researchers prompt-engineered the model to offer a non-stigmatizing alternative whenever it encountered stigmatizing language in a post. Suggestions focused on using sympathetic narratives, removing blame and highlighting structural barriers to treatment.<\/p>\n<p>The programs ultimately produced more than 1,600 de-stigmatized phrases, each paired as an alternative to a type of stigmatizing language.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/drexel.edu\/news\/~\/media\/Drexel\/Core-Site-Group\/News\/Images\/v2\/story-images\/2024\/December\/LLM-destigmatizing-ex.jpg\" alt=\"destigmatized text\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Using a combination of human reviewers and natural language processing programs, the team evaluated the model on the overall quality of the responses, extended de-stigmatization, and fidelity to the original post.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFidelity to the original post is very important,\u201d said\u00a0Layla Bouzoubaa, a doctoral student in the College of Computing &amp; Informatics who was a lead author of the research. \u201cThe last thing we want to do is remove agency from any user or censor their authentic voice. What we envision for this pipeline is that if it were integrated onto a social media platform, for example, it will merely offer an alternate way to phrase their text if their text contains stigmatizing language towards people who use drugs. The user can choose to accept this or not. Kind of like a Grammarly for bad language.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bouzoubaa also noted the importance of providing clear, transparent explanations of why the suggestions were offered and strong privacy protections of user data when it comes to widespread adoption of the program.<\/p>\n<p>To promote transparency in the process, as well as helping to educate users, the team took the step of incorporating an explanation layer in the model so that when it identified an instance of stigmatizing language it would automatically provide a detailed explanation for its classification, based on the four elements of stigma identified in the initial analysis of Reddit posts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe believe this automated feedback may feel less judgmental or confrontational than direct human feedback, potentially making users more receptive to the suggested changes,\u201d Bouzoubaa said.<\/p>\n<p>This effort is the most recent addition to the group\u2019s foundational work examining\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/aclanthology.org\/2024.findings-acl.367\/\">how people share personal stories online about experiences with drugs<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/abs\/10.1145\/3625007.3629125\">communities that have formed around these conversations on Reddit<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo our knowledge, there has not been any research on addressing or countering the language people use (computationally) that can make people in a vulnerable population feel stigmatized against,\u201d Bouzoubaa said. \u201cI think this is the biggest advantage of LLM technology and the benefit of our work. The idea behind this work is not overly complex; however, we are using LLMs as a tool to reach lengths that we could never achieve before on a problem that is also very challenging and that is where the novelty and strength of our work lies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In addition to making public the programs, the dataset of posts with stigmatizing language, as well as the de-stigmatized alternatives, the researchers plan to continue their work by studying how stigma is perceived and felt in the lived experiences of people with substance use disorders.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>In addition to Rezapour and Bouzoubaa, Elham Aghakhani contributed to this research.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Read the full paper here:\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/aclanthology.org\/2024.emnlp-main.516\/\"><em>https:\/\/aclanthology.org\/2024.emnlp-main.516\/<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This is an RTE component<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"layout-columns page-segment page-segment--sidebar-leads layout-columns--30-70\">\n<div class=\"layout-columns__col page-segment__sidebar\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"layout-columns page-segment page-segment--sidebar-leads layout-columns--30-70\">\n<div class=\"layout-columns__col page-segment__sidebar\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"rich-text \">Contact: <a href=\"https:\/\/drexel.edu\/news\/authors\/faulstick-britt\">Britt Faulstick &#8211;\u00a0<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"layout-columns page-segment page-segment--sidebar-leads layout-columns--30-70\">\n<div class=\"layout-columns__col page-segment__body\">\n<section class=\"contact-card-set\">\n<div class=\"contact-card-set__cards\">\n<div class=\"contact-card\">\n<div class=\"contact-card__info\"><a class=\"icon-link \" href=\"tel:2158952617\"><span class=\"icon-link__text \">215.895.2617<\/span><\/a><a class=\"icon-link \" href=\"mailto:britt.faulstick@drexel.edu\"><span class=\"icon-link__text \">britt.faulstick@drexel.edu<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Source: https:\/\/drexel.edu\/news\/archive\/2024\/December\/LLM-substance-use-disorder-stigmatizing-language<\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>COMMENT BY NATIONAL DRUG PREVENTION ALLIANCE ON THE ARTICLE BY DREXEL &#8211; 15 DECEMBER 2024: \u00a0NDPA has significant reservations about his article. Drexel (a &#8216;private university&#8217; in Philadelphia) are asserting that all drug use is stigmatised ,and that such stigmatisation as they observe should be negated. But other specialists in the field counter by giving [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,30,129,62,64,40,14,19,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addiction","category-cannabis-marijuana","category-culture","category-education","category-health","category-prevention-research","category-social-affairs","category-usa","category-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}