The University of Arizona has been awarded a $1.2 million federal grant to study substance abuse treatment for young women.

Dr. Sally Stevens, executive director of the Southwest Institute for Research on Women, said the Institute will study and test several different models for treatment and recovery.

"It's a different approach for drug treatment research," she said. "This is important. The adolescent research is not that old and we have not come that far along to be looking at gender-specific research for girls."

Bridget Ruiz, principal investigator for the grant, said, "It's really about creating a paradigm shift. Substance abuse treatment has historically been an acute episode of treatment where you come in for 90 days, get the curriculum and treatment, and are sent on your way. We've found that it really takes one year at least for young people, moving and out of recovery, before they come to some stability."

Over 2.1 million teenagers needed treatment for alcohol or drug abuse in 2006, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health - but only 181,000 received treatment at a specialty facility.

Learn about Four Circle's Women-Only Recovery Program

Labels: women, treatment, genders

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The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)'s Treatment Episode Data Set has revealed some distinct differences between the substance abuse risks for girls and those for boys. Most notably, though girls only made up 1/3 of the total number of adolescents admitted for treatment in 2005, they were much more likely to have a co-occurring psychiatric disorder.

"Adolescents admitted with a psychiatric problem in addition to a substance abuse problem were counted as having a co-occurring disorder. Girls were more likely to have such co-occurring disorders, which were reported in 23 percent of the female admissions compared with 18 percent of the male admissions."

Girls were also more likely to enter treatment at an earlier age for both alcohol and marijuana, and were much more likely to abuse drugs like cocaine and opiates. Read more at EMaxHealth.com.

Learn about the connection between teens and drugs at the Teen Help Directory. You'll find information about adolescent substance abuse and teenage drug abuse at TeenHelpDirectory.com.

Labels: risky_behaviors, genders, disorders

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