Substance Abuse by Older Adults:  Estimates of Future Impact on the Treatment System

About the Authors

Kristen Lawton Barry, Ph.D., is a Senior Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Psychiatry and the Associate Director of the National Serious Mental Illness Treatment Research and Evaluation Center for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Ann Arbor, Michigan. She has a number of active and pending National Institutes of Health university-based grants and Department of Veterans Affairs grants. Dr. Barry's primary research foci include alcohol problem detection and brief alcohol interventions in ambulatory care settings; relationships between substance abuse, mental health, and physical health functioning; treatment efficacy for adults with serious mental illness and co-occurring substance use disorders; women's alcohol use and mental health issues; and alcohol use by the elderly and related mental health issues.

Frederic C. Blow, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and Senior Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan and is Director of the National Serious Mental Illness Treatment Research and Evaluation Center for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Ann Arbor, Michigan. His areas of research expertise include alcohol screening and diagnosis for older adults, serious mental illness and concurrent substance abuse, brief alcohol interventions in health care settings, and mental health services research. Dr. Blow has been the principal investigator on numerous Federal, State, and foundation grants and has published extensively in the areas of substance abuse and alcoholism among the elderly, substance abuse screening/treatment, and mental health. From 1996 to 1998, Dr. Blow was Panel Chair for the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment's Treatment Improvement Protocol on Substance Abuse Among Older Adults. Additionally, he is the first Huss/Hazelden Research Chair for the Butler Center for Research at the Hazelden Center in Center City, Minnesota. Dr. Blow maintains an active role in both graduate and undergraduate teaching and the mentoring of pre- and postdoctoral students and junior faculty.

Brenda M. Booth, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Campus and Interim Director of the Centers for Mental Healthcare Research, the Health Services Research Division, within the Department of Psychiatry. Over the past 15 years for the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Booth has conducted a series of studies of substance abuse and mental health services, with publications on the health status of medically hospitalized veterans with psychiatric and substance abuse disorders, use of alcohol treatment services by rural and urban problem drinkers in the South, and the additional impairment associated with cannabis use by problem drinkers. She has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles as either a first or co-author. As a principal investigator, Dr. Booth's total NIH/VA funding has been over $7 million since her arrival at UAMS in 1992 and is currently funded by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the VA.

Carol L. Council, M.S.P.H., is a Senior Research Associate at RTI with graduate work in the area of gerontology. Earlier, she was Director of Research and Planning for Substance Abuse Services to the State of North Carolina and developed performance outcome measures for substance abuse treatment programs. Ms. Council was co-director of North Carolina's Practice and Research Consortium. As Research Associate at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Department of Epidemiology, she studied health problems and prescription drug use in rural populations. She was Program Manager for Alcohol Studies at the UNC Highway Safety Research Center and studied older driver problems, including alcohol-related driving behavior and the impact of various diseases on crash involvement. She serves on several Transportation Research Board Committees and served as Secretary of the International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety. She was Chairman of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment work group that developed the State Treatment Needs Assessment Program (STNAP) household survey protocol.

Ralph E. Folsom, Jr., Ph.D., is RTI's Chief Scientist for Survey and Computing Sciences and is expert in the design and analysis of complex probability samples. He has been with RTI since 1969. In addition to his innovative work on many complex survey efforts, Dr. Folsom has made significant contributions to the development of RTI's computer software for survey data analysis, SUDAAN. These contributions include sample design-based modes of estimation and inference for linear and logistic regression coefficients. Recently, Dr. Folsom collaborated with RTI colleagues in the implementation of software for fitting continuous time Cox Proportional Hazards models to survey data. His recent work on generalized raking has led to efficient software for survey weight adjustments. Dr. Folsom is a recent past member of the National Academy of Science Panel to Evaluate the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the American Statistical Association's working group to advise Census Bureau staff on SIPP, and the Board of Governors for the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics.

Bret E. Fuller, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon. Dr. Fuller is a young investigator in addiction research and recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan Addiction Research Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is now involved in the Clinical Trials Network sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse as a co-investigator examining strategies to reduce human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis C virus infection rates among injection drug users admitted to detoxification centers. He also coordinates a survey of staff of all the community treatment programs involved in the 14 nodes of the Clinical Trials Network. Other interests include the role of methamphetamine in sexual environments, violence among substance-abusing family members, and intergenerational transmission of risk of alcoholism and violence. Dr. Fuller is also an expert in structural equation modeling and growth curve analysis with latent variables.

Joseph C. Gfroerer, B.A., is the Director of the Division of Population Surveys in the Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. As a statistician in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services since 1976, he has been involved in the collection and analysis of a variety of survey data in his work at the National Center for Health Statistics, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and SAMHSA. Since 1988, he has directed the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. His primary areas of research interest are the epidemiology of substance use and methodological issues associated with substance use surveys.

Leigh A. Henderson, Ph.D., is an epidemiologist employed as Director of Substance Abuse Research at Synectics for Management Decisions, Inc. Her primary role for the past 10 years has been analysis of the Drug and Alcohol Services Information System (DASIS) under contract to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. She is also the Baltimore City representative to the Community Epidemiology Work Group sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. She and NIDA's W. J. Glass are the editors of the book LSD: Still With Us after All These Years.

Yih-Ing Hser, Ph.D. in psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1986, has been conducting research in the field of drug abuse and its treatment since 1980 and has extensive experience in research design and advanced statistical techniques applied to drug abuse data. Dr. Hser has published in the areas of treatment evaluation, epidemiology, natural history of drug addiction, health services, and innovative statistical modeling development and application. Her publications have been featured in the American Journal of Public Health and the Archives of General Psychiatry. She is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at UCLA and currently leads several studies, including the Evaluation of California Treatment Outcomes Project and A 12-Year Follow-up of A Cocaine-dependent Sample.

Samuel P. Korper, Ph.D., M.P.H., has been involved in domestic and international health programs and research since 1964. Dr. Korper served as Assistant Dean of the Yale University School of Medicine, as Director of the Division of Intramural Research at the National Center for Health Services Research, as Director of the Division of Legislative Analysis, with responsibilities as the principal advisor to the Director of the National Institutes of Health on legislative and policy matters. Dr. Korper is an Associate Director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) in NIH, providing leadership on NIA program analysis, evaluation, and legislation. He has served as the Executive Secretary of the DHHS Panel on Alzheimer's Disease and the DHHS Council on Alzheimer's Disease. At present, Dr. Korper serves as Senior Advisor to the Administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration on a Senior Executive Service detail from the NIH and directs the Division of Analysis in SAMHSA's Office of Applied Studies.

Michael R. Pemberton, Ph.D., is a Research Health Analyst and social psychologist with RTI. He has more than 10 years of professional experience in research design and statistical analysis in diverse areas, including substance abuse prevention, epidemiology, aggressive/competitive behavior between groups, and social cognition. His primary areas of current research are epidemiology of substance use, risk and protective factors for substance use, substance use in military populations, and motivations behind self-evaluations. He has published extensively in refereed journals in the areas of adolescent substance use prevention and intergroup competition.

Michael A. Penne, M.P.H., a Statistician in RTI's Statistics Research Division, has been with RTI since May 1996. He received his master's degree in biostatistics in 2000 while continuing to be employed full-time at RTI. He generates sampling frames, selects samples, analyzes survey data taking proper account of special clustering and stratification features embedded in the survey design, provides data management, and constructs both documentation and report tables. Additionally, he is an experienced SAS user who specializes in programming nonstandard, complicated modeling and analysis procedures.

Ira E. Raskin, Ph.D., is a consultant to the Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, where he has participated in the redesign of the Drug Abuse Warning Network and other analytical assignments. He has consulted with other Federal agencies and private companies on program evaluation and health services research. In 1995, he retired from the U.S. Public Health Service, last serving as Deputy Director, Center for Medical Effectiveness Research, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. Prior to his more than 20 years of government service, he was a senior analyst with the Congressional Commission on Railroad Retirement, the Pan American Union/Organization of American States, and W.R. Grace and Company. His publications are in health economics and patient outcomes research. He has a Ph.D. in economics from The American University; his M.A. and B.A. in economics are from Cornell University and Brooklyn College, respectively.

Barbara A. Ray, Ph.D., is with the Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, where she has managed national surveys, designed survey reports, and examined a range of Federal datasets for linkage potential. She has served as a Senior Policy Analyst and Evaluation Officer for her agency, including a national interagency program to link primary care to specialized services. She has also served as a research grant program officer at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Prior to her Federal service, she worked on national health care issues in the for-profit sector and was a researcher and clinician at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Medical School. She has published in neurology, behavioral science, and psychophysics.

Deborah E. Welsh, M.S., is a Data Analyst with the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Serious Mental Illness Treatment Research and Evaluation Center. She has expertise in analysis with large datasets and statistical modeling.

Albert Woodward, Ph.D., is with the Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, where he works on health economic and financing analysis. He served on the President's Task Force on Health Care Reform. Prior to his Federal service, he worked for several organizations in the health care area, including the Appalachian Regional Commission, Blue Cross-Blue Shield, Coopers & Lybrand, and Arthur Young. He has a Ph.D. in economics (with distinction in mathematical economics) from American University, an M.B.A. from the Wharton School, and a B.A. from Haverford College. He has published on access to health care, health insurance, and the economics and financing of mental health and substance abuse.

This page was last updated on June 16, 2008.

SAMHSA, an agency in the Department of Health and Human Services, is the Federal Government's lead agency for improving the quality and availability of substance abuse prevention, addiction treatment, and mental health services in the United States.