Women and families now comprise about 30 percent of the homeless population and they are viewed as the fastest rising subgroup. Alcoholism is their most widespread health problem It is unfortunate, then, that despite the availability of efficacious treatment programs, women enter and remain in them at much lower rates than do men. Some suggest that women will only seek treatment if women's issues are addressed or when they have options other than predominantly male programs. Since the proposed study will attempt to recruit a large sample of homeless women, an all-female program will be conducted utilizing a treatment that has been modified to take women's issues into consideration. Ninety-nine alcohol-dependent or alcohol-abusive homeless women will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: case management (CM), the Community Reinforcement Approach (CRA), or an enhanced CRA program called CREATE (Community Reinforcement, Employment, and Training Enhancement). It is considered essential to investigate a CM program, both due to its widespread popularity, and the fact that it has only inconsistent empirical backing. The behavioral intervention, CRA, has proven to be efficacious for treating alcoholics and was listed as the most cost-effective treatment in the latest meta- analytic review. In its recent successful application to a homeless population, promising preliminary outcomes were detected for the small sample of female participants. However, two limitations were apparent. First, a considerable number of women relapsed when both their treatment and their stay in the abstinence-contingent, free housing ended. Consequently, the current proposal is an attempt to provide aftercare services during this high-risk period. It also will specifically address critical issues for these women (e.g. sexual victimization) from the start. A second problem was the high rate of unemployment posttreatment. In response, this project will offer basic computer skills training to the CREATE group through an empirically-based contingency management (voucher) program proven to enhance job-training attendance. The CREATE condition also will receive motivational CRA procedures called Systematic Encouragement to bolster job-training attendance and to make the work environment a reinforcing community. It is predicted that both of the CRA conditions will result in significant improvement in alcohol use, employment, and housing stability compared to CM, and that the CREATE group will obtain employment outcomes superior to the regular CRA group.
Public Health Relevance Statement
Data not available.
NIH Spending Category
No NIH Spending Category available.
Project Terms
adult human (21+) alcoholism /alcohol abuse alcoholism /alcohol abuse prevention alcoholism /alcohol abuse therapy behavior therapy blood tests clinical trials eating disorders employment /unemployment family structure /dynamics female homeless human subject human therapy evaluation interview longitudinal human study patient care management patient oriented research psychological reinforcement questionnaires sex abuse social support network statistics /biometry training urinalysis women's health
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
CFDA Code
273
DUNS Number
868853094
UEI
F6XLTRUQJEN4
Project Start Date
27-September-2001
Project End Date
31-July-2005
Budget Start Date
01-August-2003
Budget End Date
31-July-2004
Project Funding Information for 2003
Total Funding
$417,353
Direct Costs
$346,191
Indirect Costs
$71,162
Year
Funding IC
FY Total Cost by IC
2003
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
$417,353
Year
Funding IC
FY Total Cost by IC
Sub Projects
No Sub Projects information available for 5R01AA012320-03
Publications
Publications are associated with projects, but cannot be identified with any particular year of the project or fiscal year of funding. This is due to the continuous and cumulative nature of knowledge generation across the life of a project and the sometimes long and variable publishing timeline. Similarly, for multi-component projects, publications are associated with the parent core project and not with individual sub-projects.
No Publications available for 5R01AA012320-03
Patents
No Patents information available for 5R01AA012320-03
Outcomes
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No Outcomes available for 5R01AA012320-03
Clinical Studies
No Clinical Studies information available for 5R01AA012320-03
News and More
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History
No Historical information available for 5R01AA012320-03
Similar Projects
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