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138 Presentation THE NEW MEXICO TREATMENT OUTCOME STUDY: EVALUATING THE UHLITY OF EXISTING INFORMATION SYSTEMS BERNARD H. ELLIS, Jr., M.A., M.P.H.1 ILENE McCAN, B.A.2 GREGORY PRICE, B.S.3 C MACK SEWELL, Dr.P.H.4 Substance Abuse Epidemiology Unit Division of Epidemiology, Evaluation and Planning New Mexico Department of Health Post Office Box 26110 Santa Fe, NM 87502-6110 New Mexico is a unique setting for the study of alcohol and other drug abuse treatment. Though the fifth largest state in land mass, New Mexico ranks 37th in population. Only two of our counties are considered urban by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, with 15 counties identified as rural, and the remaining 16 designated as "frontier" counties. New Mexico has a vibrant tricultural heritage, with a mutual respect for ethnic and cultural diversity that is a model for the nation. Thirty-eight percent of the state's population is Hispanic, the highest proportion in the nation. Nine percent of the population is Native American, the second highest proportion in the country. With its rural character and tricultural diversity, New Mexico faces many challenges. The state ranks 44th in per-capita income, with 21 percent of the population currently living below the poverty line. Over 30 percent of our 1 Director 2 Research Analyst 3 Systems Analyst 4 State Epidemiologist Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Vol. 3, No. 1, Summer 1992 Ellis, McCan, Price, et al. 139 students drop out of school before completing high school. Over one-quarter of the population is without third-party health insurance, compared with 15 percent nationwide. One-third of New Mexico citizens are considered medically indigent. To meet these economic and health challenges, New Mexico is blessed with numerous resources, among them a progressive state income tax; a citizenry which expects its state government to utilize all resources, particularly federal resources, to their fullest extent to address social problems; and a governor who values experience over amateurism in his appointments to head state health agencies. All of these resources are necessary to address one of the most serious public health challenges facing New Mexico today—alcohol and other drug abuse. A recent review of state epidemiological data illustrates the parameters of this problem: • Drug-involved deaths doubled in New Mexico between 1985 and 1989, with the incidence of cocaine found at autopsy increasing over 600 percent during that time period. • New Mexico's alcoholism rate is three times the national rate. • One in every seven New Mexico drivers has been arrested one or more times for driving while intoxicated (DWI). • The alcohol-related traffic mortality rate is among the highest in the country. • The mortality rate for diseases directly related to alcohol is twice the national average, with no improvement in the past decade. Unfortunately , New Mexico school children are moving against the national trend. Alcohol, tobacco, and cocaine use has increased, rather than decreased, among junior high and high school students in the past five years.1 Even though the prevalence of substance abuse as measured by these indicators is increasing on most fronts, admissions for state-supported treatment for alcohol and other drug abuse have leveled off over the past two years, as state and federal resources to provide treatment services have not kept up with demand. Thus, it is critically important in New Mexico, and throughout the country, to determine which factors predict successful outcomes in substance abuse treatment, so that scarce treatment resources maybe utilized more effectively. Within this context, the Substance Abuse Epidemiology Unit was established by theNew Mexico Department of Health in March, 1991. One of the first responsibilities of this new research unit was to evaluate the process and outcomes associated with state-supported substance abuse treatment. The 140 New Mexico Treatment Outcome Study remainder of this paper is a discussion of the New Mexico Treatment Outcome Study (TOS), a large and comprehensive evaluation research project designed to accomplish this task. We describe the scope, goals, and research design of the TOS project. In addition, we discuss some of the early findings from this study, including the characteristics of patients in state-supported treatment...

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