Drug Treatment - How Many People Are Being Treated?

UFDS/N-SSATS Data

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has been collecting data on substance-abuse facilities since 1976. The program has had various names throughout its history; it was called the Uniform Facility Data Set (UFDS) survey until 2000, when the name was changed to the National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS). In the course of this program's history, the data collected have changed, introducing discontinuities in reporting. Until 1998, under UFDS, data on clients of treatment services were reported in some detail, were omitted in 1999, and reintroduced in limited format in 2000. The most recent UFDS data on the gender, racial/ethnic, and age characteristics of people in treatment were reported in 1998. Data on these breakdowns of admissions, however, have continued to be available from another SAMHSA source covered below, the Treatment Episode Data Sets (TEDS).

N-SSATS numbers represent a snapshot of the treatment units on a particular day and does not indicate how many people were being treated over the course of the entire year. As of March 31, 2003, N-SSATS reported that the number in treatment stood at 1.09 million, representing a slight increase since 1998 FIGURE 8.1
Components of comprehensive drug abuse treatment
SOURCE: "Components of Comprehensive Drug Abuse Treatment," in Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research-Based Guide, National Institute on Drug Abuse, October 1999, reprinted July 2000 (National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS): Data on Substance Abuse Treatment Facilities, Rockville, MD: SAMHSA). (See Table 8.2.) SAMHSA also includes questions about treatment in its National Survey in order to collect data from the recipients' perspective. Figure 8.2 shows that self-help groups, outpatient rehabilitation facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, and mental health centers are where people most commonly receive treatment. Alcohol is by far the substance that the greatest number of people received treatment for, followed by marijuana, cocaine, and pain relievers. (See Figure 8.3.)

TEDS Data

Another source of data for the drug-treatment population comes from SAMHSA's Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS). This program counts admissions over the period of a year rather than the number in treatment at a particular moment, and should not be interpreted as a count of unique individuals. When the same person is admitted twice during the same year, he or she is counted twice—whereas in the UFDS/N-SSATS survey, individuals are counted only once.

TEDS data for 1998 showed 1.7 million admissions (versus UFDS' 1.03 million). TEDS admissions in 2002 were up to nearly 1.9 million. To put these numbers in perspective, in 2003, 19.5 million individuals reported using drugs to SAMHSA in the previous month and 35.0 million in the past twelve months.