Alcohol Use Disorder Project
An anonymous '“state board” decided to partner with a “local substance abuse agency” in order to determine if there was an upward spike in alcohol use during the pandemic (Covid-19), among residents of two neighboring counties. This was done by placing licensed clinicians from the “substance abuse agency” onsite at all of the municipal courts within 2 neighboring counties.
Project Overview
The state of Ohio has witnessed an overall spike in drug use during the covid-19 pandemic. One focus of this project is to determine the specific factors that directly correlate with alcohol use. The other focus (primary) is to see if providing onsite assessment & linkage services will aid the efforts of the court system in terms of people engaging in treatment services. Henceforth, the target population is represented by residents who have been court ordered to participate in substance abuse treatment after it has been determined that mood altering substances played a role in the crime that was committed.
I conducted mixed method research to understand:
1) The percentage of cases that resulted in a person being diagnosed with alcohol use disorder
2) If providing onsite access to treatment services are beneficial
3) If quick access to treatment resulted in more people engaging in substance abuse treatment
Setup
1) Roles and Responsibilities
Lead Researcher
Data Analysis
Survey / Interview Questions
2) Big Data Analysis
Analyzed and cleaned data from approximately 150 court ordered referrals for treatment.
Casual inference analysis determined 140 of the 150 were actually assessed by a substance abuse agency.
64% of the 140 were strictly users of alcohol
3) Surveys
Surveys were completed by 73 out of the140 participants to understand if the results were aligned with the results of the data analysis.
Both results show an increase in substance abuse treatment engagement that correlates with the increase in accessibility.
Data Analysis
Total amount of court ordered referrals -150
Female 29% Male 71%
- Male
- Female
- Male
- Female
Completed assessment within 48 hours of referral - 93%
Race - 83% Caucasian / 7% African American / 6% Latino /4% South Pacific Islander
Age Range - 25 - 44 (63%) /45 - 65 (17%) / 65+ (15%) / 18 - 25 (5%)
Referral Source
SUD Diagnosis
Level of Care Recommendations
Data collected during the previous 2 years (presented by county #2) showed that roughly 31 percent of everyone who received a court order to engage in substance abuse treatment actually received an assessment.
The program that was developed and implemented by the “state board” and the local substance abuse agency, was able to dramatically improve that by providing service to 93% of the participants within a 48 hour period.
Survey Questions
The survey questions were designed in effort to determine correlations between the data results and the user experience. I have listed a small portion of the survey below.
Do you believe there is adequate access to local substance abuse treatment ?
Do you know anyone who is suffering from substance abuse?
Do you think there is a correlation between substance abuse and criminal behavior ?
Do you believe substance abuse treatment is effective?
Do you think there is a correlation between unresolved mental illness and criminal behavior?
Do you believe there is adequate access to local substance abuse treatment ?
Do you think there is a correlation between substance abuse and criminal behavior ?
Key Insights & Design Opportunities
All of the data collected suggests that there is a need for assessment and linkage services to be readily available and onsite with the local court system. The data shows a favorable increase in comparison to the data prior to this project. There is an opportunity for courts all over the state to adopt this new way of thought where the legal system and substance abuse treatment providers work in concert in order to better serve local residents who struggle with substance abuse and criminal behavior.
