Barbara Havassy, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor
University of California, San Francisco
tel: (415) 514-9280 or 514-9278
fax: (415) 597-9277
email:
barbarah@lppi.ucsf.edu
My current work focuses on effective treatments for adults diagnosed with co-occurring drug dependence and major mental disorders. The research attends to clinical as well as services delivery outcomes of comorbid persons in public treatment systems, and, most recently, includes county jail inmates. Research approaches include randomized treatment trials and longitudinal studies of patterns of service use with a focus on access to care and probability of criminal justice involvement. This line of work was influenced by some of my earlier studies; a study of insurance-supported treatment of cocaine addiction, in which high rates of comorbidity were found, and a study of two models of case management for seriously mentally ill adults in which less favorable outcomes were obtained by comorbid participants, independent of the model of case management to which they were randomly assigned.
My research group, the Treatment Outcome Research Group, is supported by federal and state research grants and currently we have three major projects. The first study is a prospective longitudinal comparison of two samples of clients with co-occurring substance use and major mental disorders. One sample consists of patients of the public drug treatment system and the other consists of patients of the mental health treatment system. Initial findings (Havassy, Alvidrez, & Owen, 2004), contrary to clinical beliefs of many professionals, demonstrated that there was similarity rather than differences between the two groups in terms of in prevalence of major mental disorders. Similarly, recent drug users from each group did not differ on number of days of drug use, including cocaine and heroin use. The second study is a randomized clinical trial that evaluates the effectiveness of an innovative community-based case management intervention versus standard jail aftercare services for mentally ill adult felons. The third ongoing work is an examination of the impact of the label of "dual diagnosis" on access to treatment, specifically referral, placement, and treatment entry for clients in public-sector mental health and drug treatment services. Administrative data from two samples of clients who were processed through two centralized intake units during the 6-month period of July 2002 to December 2002 are being compared. The overarching goal is to compare barriers identified by consumers and providers participating in a prior qualitative study to dispositions and outcomes of dually diagnosed clients who attempt to enter treatment. This latter study is one of the Component Studies of the UCSF NIDA Treatment Research Center.
Selected Publications
Havassy BE, Mericle AA. (2008). Involvement in interpersonal violence in a treatment sample of individuals with co-occurring mental and substance use disorders. Under Review.
Havassy BE, Alvidrez J, Mericle AA. (2008). Use of mental health and substance abuse services by persons with co-occuring mental health and substance use disorders. (In Press, Psychiatric Services).
Mericle AA, Havassay BE. (2008). Characteristics of recent violence among entrants to acute mental health and substance abuse services. Social Psychiatry and Paschiatric Epidemiology, Epub February 22. PMID: 18297223
Mericle AA, Alvidrez J, Havassay BE. (2007). Mental health providers perspecitve on co-occurring substance use among severely mentally ill clients. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 36 (2): 173-81. PMID: 17703712.
Alvidrez J, Havassy BE. (2006). Clinical characteristics and service utilization patterns of clients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorder in public residential detoxification settings. Community Mental Health Journal, 42 (4), 131-142.
Alvidrez J, Havassy BE. (2005). Racial distribution of dual-diagnosis clients in public sector mental health and drug treatment settings. Journal Of Health Care For The Poor And Underserved, 16(1): 53-62.
Havassy BE, Alvidrez J & Owen K. (2004). Comparisons of patients with comorbid psychiatric substance abuse disorders: Implications for treatment and service delivery. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161(1):139-145.
Alvidrez J, Kaiser D, & Havassy BE. (2004). Severely mentally ill consumers’ perspectives on drug use. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 36(3):347-55.
