Availability of HIV-Related Health Services in U.S. Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment Programs

Because alcohol and drug abuse heightens adolescents' risk of becoming infected with HIV, "substance abuse treatment programs for youths may represent an important site of HIV prevention," the authors wrote. In the current study, they explored the adoption of three HIV-related health services: risk assessment during intake, HIV prevention programming and HIV testing.

Data were collected by telephone interviews with 149 managers of US substance abuse treatment programs treating adolescents only. Risk assessment and HIV prevention had been adopted by about half of these programs. Only one in four programs, however, was offering on-site HIV testing.

The availability of on-site primary medical care and an overnight level of care were positively associated with these three types of services at the bivariate level. Once medical services were controlled, the association for the measure of an overnight level of care was no longer significant. A separate analysis, however, found the programs offering an overnight level of care were much more likely to offer on-site medical care than were outpatient-only facilities.

"There was also evidence that publicly funded treatment programs were more likely to offer HIV prevention and on-site HIV testing, after controlling for other organizational characteristics," the authors concluded. "Much more research about the adoption of HIV-related services in adolescent substance abuse treatment is needed, particularly to offer greater insight into why certain types of organizations are more likely to adopt these health services."

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