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Isabelle Volpe

Isabelle Volpe

PhD Candidate
Arts, Design & Architecture
Social Policy Research Centre

Email: i.volpe@unsw.edu.au

Supervisors: Alison Ritter, Kari Lancaster, Paul Kelaita

Isabelle Volpe is a PhD candidate in the Drug Policy Modelling Program team at the Social Policy Research Centre. Her PhD research draws on critical social science approaches to explore whether and how alternative ways of doing ‘participation’ can open up new ways of thinking about complex policy problems relating to young people and drugs.

Alongside her PhD, Isabelle’s recent research and practice have focused on the communication of harm reduction information, especially relating to drug alerts and drug checking services. Isabelle has previously conducted mixed-methods drug treatment research including clinical trials, treatment guidelines, government-commissioned policy reviews, and designing health promotion interventions.

Isabelle currently works with The Loop Australia and volunteers with Dancewize NSW to provide drug harm reduction services at music festivals. She also serves as a member of the Early- to Mid-Career Researchers Subcommittee of the Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs (APSAD).
  • Rethinking policy participation
  • ‘Young people’ and ‘drugs’

Peer-reviewed journal articles 

  • Grigg, J., Manning, V., Lockie, D., Giles, M., Bell, R., Stragalinos, P., Bernard, C., Volpe, I., Greenwood, C. J., Smith, L., Bragge, P., & Lubman, D. I. (2023) A Brief Intervention for Improving Alcohol Literacy and Addressing Harmful Alcohol Use Among Women Attending an Australian Breast Screening Service (Health4her): Protocol for a Hybrid Effectiveness-Implementation Trial. JMIR Research Protocols.
  • Brien, R., Volpe, I., Grigg, J., Lyons, T., Hughes, C., McKinnon, G., Tzanetis, S., Crawford, S., Eade, A., Lee, N., & Barratt, M. (2023) Co-designing high-risk drug alerts for health and community service practitioners. Harm Reduction Journal, 20(30).
  • Volpe, I., Brien, R., Grigg, J., Tzanetis, S., Crawford, S., Lyons, T., Lee, N., McKinnon, G., Hughes, C., Eade, A., & Barratt, M. (2023) “We don’t live in a harm reduction world, we live in a prohibition world”: tensions arising in the design of high-risk drug alerts. Harm Reduction Journal, 20(3).
  • Grigg, J., Manning, V., Lockie, D., Giles, M., Bell, R., Stragalinos, P., Bernard, C., Greenwood, C. J., Volpe, I., Smith, L., Bragge, P., & Lubman, D. I. (2023) Effectiveness of a brief intervention for improving alcohol literacy and addressing harmful alcohol use among women in Australia attending breast screening services: a randomised controlled trial. Medical Journal of Australia.
  • Lubman, D. I., Grigg, J., Reynolds, J., Hall, K., Baker, A. L., Staiger, P. K., Tyler, J., Volpe, I., Stragalinos, P., Harris, A., Best, D., & Manning, V. (2022) Effectiveness of a standalone telephone-delivered intervention for reducing problem alcohol use: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry.
  • Grigg, J., Volpe, I., Tyler, J., Hall, K., McPherson, B., Lubman, D. I., & Manning, V. (2022) Ready2Change: Preliminary effectiveness of a telephone-delivered intervention program for alcohol, methamphetamine and cannabis use problems. Drug and Alcohol Review.
  • Robinson, A. H., Perales, J. C., Volpe, I., Chong, T. T., Verdejo-Garcia, A. (2021) Are methamphetamine users compulsive? Faulty reinforcement learning, not inflexibility, underlies decision making in people with methamphetamine use disorder. Addiction Biology.
  • Bernard, C., Grigg, J., Volpe, I., Lubman, D.I., & Manning, V. (2020) Client Experiences of a Telephone-Delivered Intervention for Alcohol Use: a Qualitative Study. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction.
  • Lubman, D.I., Grigg, J., Manning, V., Hall, K., Volpe, I., Dias, S., Baker, A. Staiger, P., Reynolds, J., Harris, A., Tyler, J. & Best, D. (2019). A structured telephone-delivered intervention to reduce problem alcohol use (Ready2Change): study protocol for a parallel group randomised controlled trial. Trials, 20(515).

Commentaries (Peer-reviewed journals) 

  • Pennay, A., Savic, M., Seear, K., Volpe, I., Manning, V., & Room, R. (2020) Decriminalising public drunkenness: accountability and monitoring needed in the ongoing and evolving management of public intoxication. Drug and Alcohol Review.
  • Barratt, M.J., Kowalski, M., Volpe, I., & Maier, L.J. (2020) On‐site drug checking can provide quantitative analysis. Internal Medicine Journal, 50: 1022-1023.