National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS)

The National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS) is an annual census designed to collect information from all facilities within the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories, both public and private, that provide substance abuse treatment. N-SSATS provides the mechanism for quantifying the dynamic character and composition of the United States substance abuse treatment delivery system.

Designed to collect data based on the location of the facility, the objectives of N-SSATS are (1) Collect multipurpose data that can be used to assist the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and state and local governments in assessing the nature and extent of services provided and in forecasting treatment resource requirements; (2) Update SAMHSA’s Inventory of Behavioral Health Services (I-BHS); (3) Analyze general treatment services trends; (4) Generate the online Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator and the National Directory of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Treatment Programs.

N-SSATS collects three types of information from facilities: (1) characteristics of individual facilities such as types of treatment provided and services offered (assessment, counseling, pharmacotherapies used, testing, transitional, and ancillary services), operation of the facility (public or private), special programs or groups provided for specific client types, client outreach, and payment options; (2) client count information (based on a survey reference date) such as counts of clients served by service type and number of beds designated for treatment (collected only in “odd” years); and (3) general information such as licensure, certification, or accreditation and facility website availability.