The NYU Club Health Study is based in NYU Langone’s Department of Population Health, Section on Tobacco, Alcohol, and Drug Use and receives funding from the National Institutes of Health. We track the prevalence of drug use among electronic dance music (EDM) venue attendees in New York City with a particular focus on detecting unknown exposure to drugs like “bath salts” and fentanyl.

Our team recruits study participants as they enter nightclubs and dance festivals. Participants are asked to take a brief survey and consent to providing an optional saliva specimen, which we then use to detect unknown exposure to adulterant or contaminant drugs that can be present in more common drugs like cocaine or ecstasy.

We partner with colleagues at the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education’s Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) Discovery Program, who can test for and detect exposure to over 1,000 novel drugs using advanced testing methods. This helps us identify the presence of newer drugs that most other labs are currently unable to detect.

Our Team

Joseph J. Palamar, MPH, PhD
Lead Investigator

Charles Cleland
Study Statistician

Mark K. Su
Medical Monitor

Patricia Acosta
Project Manager

Nina Abukahok
Research Coordinator

Stay Connected

For more information about the NYU Club Health Study, email NYUClubHealthStudy@NYULangone.org. If you would like to receive email updates about this study, please complete the form below.