Highlights from the 1987 National Drug and Alcoholism Treatment Unit Survey.

Highlights from the 1987 National Drug and Alcoholism Treatment Unit Survey (NDATUS)

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The National Drug and Alcoholism Treatment Unit Survey (NDATUS) was first conducted in 1974 by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and has been conducted every 2 to 3 years since then. In 1979, NDATUS was expanded to include alcoholism as well as drug abuse facilities; since that time it has been sponsored jointly by NIDA and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). NDATUS is a voluntary survey that is designed to be a census of all known drug abuse and alcoholism treatment facilities in the United States. This article is based on preliminary data on alcoholism treatment derived from the 1987 NDATUS. The full 1987 report, which will include data from both drug abuse and alcoholism facilities, is scheduled to be published later this year. Data on clients in treatment pertain to the point-prevalence date of October 30, 1987.

The purpose of NDATUS is to identify all drug abuse and alcoholism treatment and prevention facilities throughout the nation and to collect information regarding their scope, utilization, and other characteristics. Facilities in both the public and private sectors are included, regardless of the source of funding support. Unit identification and descriptive information such as ownership and specialized programs are collected from treatment and nontreatment facilities. From treatment units, NDATUS also collects data about the types of services provided, client capacity and census on the point-prevalence date, client demographic characteristics, and funding amounts and sources.

The data are collected in cooperation with the State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Agencies, which assist in identifying programs to be surveyed, distributing forms to individual facilities, collecting forms and answering respondents' questions, checking and editing data, and submitting completed questionnaires.

In a departure from previous surveys, which required that facilities be identified by a unique Government-issued identification number, the 1987 NDATUS accepted the States' identification numbers and their definition of what constitutes a facility for reporting purposes. In some cases multiple-site facilities were reported as a single unit (representing the parent organization); in other cases each site was reported as a separate facility. Although this variation may affect the number of facilities, it has no effect on the total number of clients reported.

Following a brief section on the total number of facilities reporting, including both treatment and prevention units, the remainder of the report is restricted to data on …