 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Helen Matzger, MPH1, Kevin Delucchi, PhD2, and Constance Weisner, DrPH, MSW2. (1) Alcohol Research Group, University of California, San Francisco, 2000 Hearst St., Suite 300, Berkeley, CA 94709, 510-64d2-5208 x42, matzger@itsa.ucsf.edu, (2) Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, 401 Parnassus Ave., Box 0984-TRC, San Francisco, CA 94143-0984
Several studies have demonstrated the importance of treatment over time, but none have looked longitudinally at the competing roles of contact with Alcoholic Anonymous, changes to ?dry? social networks and interventions from the workplace and the medical, mental health, and legal system. This presentation will examine how informal support and community services impact the course of alcohol disorders by examining the trajectories of alcohol consumption over five years in probability samples of treated and untreated problem and dependent drinkers. In multivariate models using full maximum likelihood estimation via Proc Mixed, controlling for demographic and severity measures, we found a significant trend of less drinking over time. AA participation and positive social networks were the most important factors in decreasing consumption for both groups (p<.001 for all). Contact with the medical and mental health system were related to less drinking for the problem drinker group (p< .05, and p< .01 respectively). For the more severe dependent group, interventions from community agencies did not decrease consumption. Findings point to the importance of developing mechanisms for identifying problem drinkers in the course of contacts with health and social service systems and facilitating use of self-help groups and positive changes in social networks
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Substance Abuse Treatment, Alcohol Use