Homelessness and Substance Abuse Treatment
Good Morning,
The DASIS Report: Homeless Admissions to Substance Abuse Treatment: 2004 discusses admissions to substance abuse treatment by housing status. This information is lifted straight from a website of the SAMHSA Office of Applied Studies. "SAMHSA, an agency in the Department of Health and Human Services, is the Federal Government's lead agency for improving the quality and availability of substance abuse prevention, addiction treatment, and mental health services in the United States."
Highlights
* According to SAMHSA's Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS), more than 175,300 admissions to substance abuse treatment in 2004 were homeless at time of admission. The admissions who were homeless comprised 13% of all admissions for which living arrangements were recorded; an increase from 10% TEDS admissions reported to be homeless in 2000. Almost half of the homeless admissions in substance abuse treatment (47%) were white.
* Alcohol was the primary substance of abuse for more than half of the substance abuse treatment admissions who were homeless (52%), followed by opiates (21%), and cocaine (17%).
* The largest difference in primary substance of abuse between homeless admissions and those who were not homeless was found among American Indians/ Alaska Natives. A greater proportion of American Indians/ Alaska Natives admissions who were homeless reported alcohol abuse than American Indians/ Alaska Natives who were not homeless (78% vs. 58%).
* Homeless admissions were more likely than substance abuse treatment admissions who were not homeless to refer themselves for treatment (48% vs. 33%) and were over twice as likely to have had five or more prior admissions to substance abuse treatment (21% vs. 9%).
This OAS Short Report, The DASIS Report: Homeless Admissions to Substance Abuse Treatment: 2004, is based on the Drug and Alcohol Services Information System (DASIS), the primary source of national data on substance abuse treatment. DASIS is conducted by the Office of Applied Studies (OAS) in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
