 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Jon Morgenstern, PhD, Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, 1 Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1230, New York, NY 10029, 212-659-8722, jon.morgenstern@mssm.edu and Thomas Irwin, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, 1 Gustave Levy Place, Box 1230, New York, NY 10029.
The majority of individuals with alcohol use disorders (AUD) fail to receive treatment in the United States. It has been argued repeatedly that the alcohol treatment system needs to develop more responsive interventions in order to promote access to care. Key recommendations include designing interventions that are brief, offer goal choice, and that are more culturally sensitive. The current study examines results of offering this type of more responsive AUD intervention. The context of the study is a clinical trial investigating two types of individual therapy targeting alcohol use disorders and unsafe sex among men who have sex with men (MSM). Both intervention strategies utilized a harm reduction approach, were brief, allowed for goal choice, and were specially tailored to be culturally sensitive. An extensive professionally-informed, well-funded, multi-year marketing campaign for this study was conducted. Over $35,000 dollars was spent on advertising in local gay and mainstream publications and over 100,000 pamphlets describing the treatments were distributed in gay venues. In spite of these efforts, only 1,500 participants initiated a call to the study, and only 104 attended at least one session of care over the 2.5 year period of recruitment. In addition, of those 104 participants receiving treatment, only 5.7% met the recommended patient criteria for brief moderation-goal alcohol treatment. The remaining 94.3% were either severely alcohol dependent, had a drug use disorder, or a mental health disorder. Implications for understanding how to improve access to care for high-risk AUD populations will be discussed.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Alcohol, Treatment Adherence
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.