NOVEMBER 2020
Hi Everyone
Firstly, we would like to thank everyone who supported the first ASUK international conference. The public health implications of anabolic androgenic steroid use was a great success and we are grateful to the speakers and chairs for their time and commitment, and to the many people and organisations for their help including the drug service providers, StreamIT.cafe, Global Public Health Network, Fluke Design and Linnell Communications.
Special thanks goes to the conference sponsors for making this event possible:
We had over 400 delegates registered for the conference and maintained over 300 viewers throughout the day. We now have all the conference presentations uploaded onto the ASUK website:
https://www.anabolicsteroids.org.uk/conference-2020-anabolic-steroids-uk-asuk/
In keeping with the conference ethos, the recordings are free to access and share. We are hoping to build on the success of this event. We are aware of topics that we did not cover and many other excellent speakers that we would like to hear from. We will keep you updated on plans for the next conference.
In the coming months we will turn our attention to developing the website. The two priorities are:
- To capture the recent and forthcoming UK research on the use of AAS and associated drugs
- To create a directory of services provision for AAS users in the UK
The process of compiling information will mean that we will be contacting both academics and service providers for information to include in this project.
Meanwhile we would be grateful if academics could contact us to alert us of their new publications so that we can include them in our newsletter, we would also encourage authors to record a 5-minute summary video for inclusion on the resources section of the website: https://www.anabolicsteroids.org.uk/resources-anabolic-androgenic-steroids-aas/
You will see that there is a growing number of interviews with academics discussing their work in this section – Charlotte McLean, Martin Chandler, Rebekah Brennan, Jen Germain and Luke Turnock give fascinating insights into their work and experience. We would be grateful if more researchers could contact us to arrange for either Dr Gemma Yarwood or myself to interview them about aspects of their work. We are interested in hearing from early career researchers as well as established senior academics. We hope to have all the UK researchers represented on the website as soon as we can: https://www.anabolicsteroids.org.uk/academics-anabolic-steroids-uk-asuk/
If you are a researcher and are not yet included on the website, please let us know so we can update the website and include you.
You will see on the website that we have a number of links to practitioners working with AAS users:
https://www.anabolicsteroids.org.uk/practitioners-asuk-anabolic-steroids-uk/
We know that there are a lot more people doing valuable work so please get in touch so that we can include you. While we will be conducting a more structured approach to collating information on current AAS services in the UK, this is a separate exercise to capture information on practitioners.
On a personal note I would like to thank everyone who watched or sent messages of support for my inaugural professorial lecture. The recording of the lecture can also be found in the resources section of the ASUK website (if you listen carefully, you can hear my bulldog snoring in the background – like many of you, she had heard it all before).
Finally, I have included everyone who signed up for the conference on this list. If you do not want to receive any more updates, please use the unsubscribe function.
Thanks for your support and best wishes
Jim McVeigh
Substance Use & Associated Behaviours
Manchester Metropolitan University