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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Jeanne C. Marsh, PhD, School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, 969 E 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, 773-702-1144, jmarsh@uchicago.edu

Substance abuse treatment is known to be beneficial for both men and women and for individuals from different racial and ethnic groups. However, individuals from different groups face distinct challenges in relation to the severity of their substance abuse disorders and their capacity to access substance abuse treatment services. This presentation examines the extent to which different groups require different treatment approaches to optimize treatment effectiveness. The analysis uses the National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study (NTIES) data set, a prospective, longitudinal multi-site study of substance abuse treatment programs serving vulnerable and underserved populations, including racial and ethnic minorities, youth, public housing residents, welfare recipients and those involved in the criminal justice system. The analytic sample consists of 3,142 clients from 59 service delivery units. The sample includes data on organizational, service and individual client characteristics for 1123 women and 2019 men; 1812 Blacks, 2186 Hispanics and 844 Whites. Findings indicate that different factors are related to treatment success for different groups. For example, the receipt of mental health services is significantly related to successful outcomes for White women. Gender is the most significant predictor of outcome for Hispanics with women registering better post-treatment outcomes than men. And, Black clients, both women and men, are especially responsive to the receipt of substance abuse counseling. Implications of the findings for developing gender- and race-specific services will be examined.

Learning Objectives:

• To identify gender and race/ethnic disparities in severity, service access, service utilization and treatment outcome.
• To illustrate factors predicting outcome for different race/ethnic and gender groups.
• To describe methodological challenges related to the analysis of organizational- and service-level data across race/ethnic and gender groups.

Keywords: Treatment Outcomes, Substance Abuse Treatment

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation