Alcohol Problems & Service Dynamics after Welfare Reform

本研究对福利接受者的代表性样本进行了4年的跟踪调查，以检查福利改革时期酒精和毒品问题与服务使用、贫困和失业之间纵向关系的变化。2001年春，对整个加州县的福利受助人进行了有代表性的抽样调查，他们申请联邦贫困家庭临时援助（TANF）和地方资助的一般援助（GA）。这些接受者的代表性子样本——包括问题饮酒者和重度吸毒者的超额样本——随后被跟踪并在基线后的12、24、36和48个月重新接受采访。目的是测试福利改革提出的重要的新假设，即关键方案的变化如何影响有酒精和毒品问题的客户，并改变他们的经济流动性和成瘾康复的前景。该项目使用事件历史分析来研究酒精和毒品问题与福利依赖周期之间的关系。它研究了酒精在特定福利退出和重新进入事件周围环境中的作用，包括这些事件如何作为随后福利回报的预测因素。进一步的分析试图更好地了解饮酒、吸毒和贫困状况之间的联系，因为它们随着时间的推移而变化，并与对福利的依赖有关。最后，该项目审查了目前加强的酒精和药物治疗福利干预措施，认为这些因素可以改变接受援助人员的饮酒轨迹和服务职业。

This study follows a representative sample of welfare recipients over 4 years, to examine changes in the longitudinal relationships between alcohol and drug problems and service use, poverty and unemployment in the welfare reform era. A representative sample of welfare recipients throughout an entire California county are surveyed in the Spring of 2001, as they apply for federal Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF, formerly Aid to Families with Dependent Children) and locally-funded General Assistance (GA). A representative sub-sample of these recipients - including an over-sample of problem drinkers and heavy drug users - are then followed and re-interviewed at 12, 24, 36 and 48 months after baseline. The objective is to test important new hypotheses raised by welfare reform concerning how key program changes are affecting clients with alcohol and drug problems, and changing their prospects for economic mobility and addiction recovery. The project uses event history analysis to study the relationships between alcohol and drug problems and cycles of welfare dependency. It examines alcohol's role in the circumstances surrounding particular welfare exit and re-entry events, including how these events can serve as predictors of subsequent welfare returns. Further analyses seek to better understand the associations between drinking, drug use and poverty conditions as they vary together over time and in relation to welfare dependency. Finally, the project examines today's enhanced welfare interventions for alcohol and drug treatment as factors that can alter the drinking trajectories and service careers of people on aid.