Welfare reform may aid drug treatment.

Substance abuse is less common among women receiving welfare than it was 15 years ago, according to November AJPH studies.

Two recent studies examined substance use disorders among low-income women with children and found that welfare reform seemed to have translated into fewer substance-abusing women receiving aid from the national Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Program recipients who have drug problems are more likely to get treatment than poor women who do not receive such aid, the study found.

One of the studies, which was based on annual data from mothers between the ages of 18 and 49 who responded to two national surveys, found that the number of low-income, substance-using mothers receiving welfare declined from 54 percent in 1996 to 38 percent in 2001. The decline was much smaller among poor mothers who did not use illicit substances. And among 2002 survey respondents deemed to be in need of treatment, welfare recipients were more than twice as likely as non-recipients to receive such services.

Another study found intensive case management was much more effective than the usual model of care for women receiving welfare who had drug problems. In that study, women who received intensive case management, which involved long-term support and monitoring, were twice as likely to be drug-free 15 months following the first treatment than those enrolled in more traditional treatment programs. (Pages 2,024 and 2,016)