Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #117611

Maria Angeles Bilbao¹, Rodrigo Bilbao Ramirez², Rodrigo Portilla², Tamina Orellana², and Kenneth Steinman, PhD³. (1) School of Psychology - School of Public Health, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile - The Ohio State University, Escuela de Psicologia, Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860 - Macul, Santiago, Chile, 56- 2- 354 4816, mbilbaor@uc.cl, (2) Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, School of Psychology, Av. Recoleta 5690, Huechuraba, Santiago, Chile, (3) School of Public Health/Division of Health Behavior and Health Promotion, Ohio State University, 320 West 10th Avenue, B-215 Starling-Loving Hall, Columbus, OH 43210-1240

The mental health community center (COSAM) of Huechuraba –Santiago de Chile-, has developed a program for individuals and families who present a problematic alcohol and other drug consumption. The program offers five different services to the community, being the most important of them an ambulatory treatment with five progressive modules. The program started in the year 2003 as the first program in the municipality, in association with the Department of Public Health and CONACE. Since then, it has attended more than 700 people in different modalities. This is the first sound evaluation of the program, based in C. Weiss program evaluation model. Qualitative and quantitative techniques are used to gather and analyze the data. At the end of this evaluation, projected to be in June 2005, we expect to have a better understanding of the program dynamic within the community and with the participants. The results will tell us about the type of participants that come to the center; their principal characteristics associated with the permanence or withdraw from the program; and the principal effective elements of the ambulatory treatment. Limitations of the evaluation and further practice implications will be discussed.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

• Evaluate key elements for the effectiveness of this type of ATOD programs in underserved communities.
• Recognize and understand one of the Chilean public health ATOD programs for underserved communities.
• Identify program elements that can be change to improve its cost-effectiveness.

Keywords: Substance Abuse Treatment, Developing Countries

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.