Indicator Description
It is common to count the client census in treatment facilities on a particular day each year. Enrollment reflects treatment demand, but it is also closely related to the community's treatment capacity.

Types of treatment include:

• Medical detoxification is the process of getting rid of addictive substances from the patient's body while managing the intense physical symptoms of withdrawal.  It is only the first stage of addiction treatment.
• Inpatient treatment involves treating patients in a residential center. Treatment is usually provided under medical supervision and is structured.
• Outpatient treatment is designed for patients who can commute to a center for treatment. Many outpatient programs offer several different services, including detoxification, intensive day treatment, weekly sessions, group therapy, and drug education programs.

What to Measure

• The number per 100,000 population treated for substance use problems.
• The number of people in treatment on a particular day or the average daily census of clients.
• The total number of admissions to treatment in a year.
• The number of people treated in certain treatment settings (i.e., public or private residential, inpatient, outpatient) or in certain age groups.
• The number of people on a waiting list for treatment and the length of wait.

Where to Find Local Data

• Contact your state substance abuse agency. Nearly all states maintain admission or client information for publicly-funded programs. However, trend information from your community may not be available. In these circumstances, some communities can retrieve their own information from local treatment facilities. Specialty treatment units usually list their services in local phone books and with local United Ways. The SAMHSA treatment database also lists licensed treatment programs by ZIP Code.
• The Drug and Alcohol Services Information System (DASIS) is the primary source of national data on addiction treatment. DASIS has three components:
• The Inventory of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (I-SATS) is a listing of all known public and private drug and alcohol treatment facilities in the United States and its territories.
• The National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS) is an annual survey of all facilities in the I-SATS that collects information on location, characteristics, services offered and utilization.
• The Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) is a compilation of data on the demographic and substance of use characteristics of admissions to drug and alcohol treatment.

Interpretation Guidelines

• The number of people in treatment can be thought of as a measure of a community's capacity to treat substance use problems. Remember that the capacity of specialty treatment is only one part of total treatment capacity, because some people seek help from individual professionals, acupuncturists, natural healers, self-help groups, other informal sources, and ministers and other clergy.
• The number of people in local facilities may be an under-representation of the true capacity used because people may seek treatment in programs located outside their communities.
• The number of people who use treatment is generally far fewer than the number of people with substance use problems that need treatment.
• Measuring the number of admissions is different from measuring the number of people in treatment because people can be admitted more than one time or transferred across programs.

Source: Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Bureau of Substance Abuse Services, Office of Statistics and Evaluation. Substance Abuse Treatment Fact Sheet, 2004.