The Los Angeles County Drug Abuse Program Office (DAPO) submits the attached proposal for the development of a Research Demonstration Project to improve the effectiveness of drug abuse treatment. The Evaluation of Perinatal Cocaine Abusers is an intensive 6-month 7day treatment program for minority women in South Central Los Angeles. These women are referred to drug treatment by the Los Angeles County Dependency Courts for giving birth to an infant prenatally exposed to drugs. The proposal is a collaborative effort between the Drug Abuse Program Office, the Child Protective Division of the Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services, the Watts Health Foundation, House of Uhuru, the South Central Los Angeles Regional Center for Developmental Disabilities, the Los Angeles County Courts and the University of Southern California Hamovitch Social Work Research Center. The experimental treatment program will provide family, individual and group counseling, intake and assessment services for children and mothers, health education, parent trainings, developmental assessments for infants, child care, self help and support groups, recreation and transportation. The proposed study will be a randomized field experiment conducted in two phases over a five year period.
The specific aims of the proposed experimental study are: 1) to develop and refine over time an intensive day-treatment model of drug abuse treatment for women who have given birth to infants prenatally exposed to drugs; 2) to evaluate the relative effectiveness of the intensive day-treatment model compared to traditional outpatient programs; 3) to explore and describe the relationship among client characteristic levels of treatment implementation and other client outcomes over an 18 month treatment and follow-up period.
| Nishimoto, R H; Roberts, A C (2001) Coercion and drug treatment for postpartum women. Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse 27:161-81 |
| Nishimoto, R H; Gordon, L F (1997) The course of depressive symptoms over time for women who completed drug treatment. J Subst Abuse Treat 14:123-31 |
| Roberts, A C; Nishimoto, R H (1996) Predicting treatment retention of women dependent on cocaine. Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse 22:313-33 |
| Strantz, I H; Welch, S P (1995) Postpartum women in outpatient drug abuse treatment: correlates of retention/completion. J Psychoactive Drugs 27:357-73 |
