Abstract
Greater economic benefits have been associated with longer lengths of stay in methadone treatment. Little is known about whether the costs and benefits of methadone treatment differ for women and men. This paper examines the costs of outpatient methadone treatment (OMT) in NIDA's Drug Abuse Treatment Outcome Studies (DATOS) for women and men, and estimates the economic benefits from avoided crime costs during and after treatment. Women and men are also grouped according to length of time in treatment and costs are examined for discharged patients (patients with less than 1 year of treatment in their index DATOS OMT program) and continuing patients (patients who remained in their index treatment for at least 1 year). It was hypothesized that methadone treatment benefits in the form of costs of crime to society before, during, and after treatment would differ by gender, and crime cost savings would be greater for both women and men who remained in treatment for 365 days or longer. Subjects were 144 women and 250 men from 8 cities and 16 programs. Female subjects were 30% African American, 43% Caucasian, and 26% Hispanic with an average age of 35.5 years. Male subjects were 35% African American, 40% Caucasian, and 24% Hispanic with an average age of 38 years. Women had greater reductions in crime costs than men. Greater net economic benefits to society were accrued by women than men.
