Barbara Havassy, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor
University of California, San Francisco
Phone: (415) 514-9280 or 514-9278
Fax: (415) 597-9277
E-mail:
barbarah@lppi.ucsf.edu
I conduct research concerning the provisions of effective treatments for adults diagnosed with co-occurring drug dependence and major mental disorders. The target population consists of persons with co-occuring disorders in public treatment wystems and also the criminal justice system. The major issues is whether persons with psychiatric and substance use disorders receive care for their psychiatric and drug abuse problems. My interests are both clinical and services delivery outcomes. Few studies address both groups of outcomes. Research methods include randomized treatment trials and longitudinal studies or designs involving both, depending on the airms beind addressed. 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.
Currently, my work focuses on analyses of data from my NIDA-funded prospective longitudinal comparison of clients concurrently recruited from the public drug treatment system and the mental health treatment system. The question was whether clients with co-occurring disorders treated in the substance abuse treatment system differed from those treated in the mental health treatment system in critical characteristics that should influence the organization of treatment. Approximately 54% of the total sample had co-occurring disorders. Findings (Havassy, Alvidrez, & Owen, 2004), 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. Subsequent findings on service utilization patterns have shown disparities in patterns of service utilization, although as noted, there were no significant diagnostic differences between the groups. Participants with co-occurring disorders recruited from the substance abuse treatment system were signifcantly less likely than those from the mental health treatment system to obtain any mental health services, mental health day treatment, transitional residential care, case management, and other outpatient services for all comparisons ( Mericle & Havassy, 2008) social networks and their function, health status, and patterns of use of the substance abuse treament system and the mental health treatment system (concurrent use patterns and sequential use patterns).
Selected Publications
Havassy BE, Alvidrez J, Mericle AA. (2009). Disparities in use of mental health and substance abuse services by persons with co-occuring disorders. Psychiatric Services, 60(2), 217-223. PMID: 19176416.
Mericle AA, Havassy BE. (2008). Characteristics of recent violence among entrants to acute mental health and substance abuse services. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 43(5), 392-402. PMID: 18297223.
Mericle AA, Alvidrez J, Havassy 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. PMID: 16425102.
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. PMID: 15741709.
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. PMID: 14702262.
Alvidrez J, Kaiser D, & Havassy BE. (2004). Severely mentally ill consumers’ perspectives on drug use. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 36(3), 347-55. PMID: 15559681.
