Economic costs of residential substance abuse treatment for pregnant and parenting women and their children

Abstract

This paper provides basic information about the economic cost of substance abuse treatment provided in 39 demonstration projects funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, under its Residential Women and Children and Pregnant and Postpartum Women (RWC/PPW) programs. It integrates data assembled in two studies, a study of annual project implementation costs based on the CSAT-developed Substance Abuse Treatment Cost Analysis and Allocation Template (SATCAAT) and a cross-site study of other project and client characteristics. Findings indicate that the average economic cost of treating a woman and her infants and young children in this type of long-term residential program, in fiscal 1997 dollars, was $25,744. This cost had three components of roughly equal size: services for clients, services for clients' children, and housing. Clinical services were found to be highly front-loaded, being more intensive in the initial weeks of treatment than in later stabilization phases. Considerable project-to-project variation in average episode cost was observed, linked primarily to project differences in size/occupancy and in average client length of stay.