International Research Capacity-Building Programs for Nurses to Study the Drug Phenomenon in Latin America: challenges and perspectives.

The First International Research Capacity-Building Program for Nurses to Study the Drug Phenomenon in the Americas is a result of a partnership between the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Faculty of Nursing in the University of Alberta, with financial support from the Government of Canada. The program was divided into two parts. The first part of the program was held at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It involved capacity-building in research methodologies at the Faculty of Nursing, which lead to the preparation of four multi-centric research proposals for drug demand reduction in the home countries of the eleven participants in the program. The second part of the program was related to the implementation of multi-centric research proposals in seven countries in Latin America and in Canada. This program presented expertise in research methodology to members of Latin American Schools of Nursing and introduced Latin American expertise to members of a Canadian Faculty of Nursing. The International Research Capacity-Building Program for Nurses to Study the Drug Phenomenon in the Americas has fostered the kind of inter-cultural respect and mutual appreciation necessary to confront the global health problem of the abuse of both licit and illicit drugs.