Health Policy
Substance Use Treatment Research
Division Chief Bruce Schackman, Ph.D., studies the economic implications of integrating substance abuse and medical treatment. Current and recent projects identify costs and evaluate the cost-effectiveness of treating opioid dependence with buprenorphine in medical settings, and of hepatitis C testing and medical treatment in substance abuse treatment settings. The results will be valuable to policy makers in overcoming financial barriers to integrating medical and substance abuse care.
These projects are funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the US Health Resources and Services Administration, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Ann Beeder, M.D., Associate Professor and Interim Chief of the Division of Community and Public Health Programs, is a co-investigator.
Dr. Schackman has also conducted studies in collaboration with Robert B. Millman, M.D., formerly Chief of the Division of Community and Public Health Programs, to evaluate the quality of adolescent substance abuse treatment programs (study in Substance Abuse Treatment and Prevention Policy; study in Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine).
The research of Yuhua Bao, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Public Health, has also included investigating the effectiveness of services for the treatment of substance abuse. Her paper published in the December 2006 issue of Health Services Research, “Is some provider advice on smoking cessation better than no advice? An instrumental variable analysis of the 2001 National Health Interview Surveys,” was selected as the journal’s 2007 John M. Eisenberg Article of the Year for excellent original research in health care policy.
