Annual Report 2013

The Iowa Consortium for Substance Abuse Research and Evaluation
Mailing address:
100 MTP4, Suite 102
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242-5000
Street address:
2662 Crosspark Rd
Coralville IA 52241-5000
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR STEPHAN ARNDT

Since 1991, the Iowa Consortium for Substance Abuse Research and
Evaluation has grown and matured. It began as a combined effort of several departments in state government, the state's three regent institutions, and community treatment centers. The Consortium office was a single office in the basement of an old building on the U of I campus.
With these scanty beginnings and over 20 years later, many things have changed, some have not, and we have all grown a little wiser.

The Consortium is committed to strengthening substance abuse prevention and intervention activities through collaborative research.

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The Iowa Consortium for Substance Abuse Research and Evaluation

What has changed?
The treatment and prevention fields did not talk too much about evidence based practices. Now it is almost a given that programs and projects use evidence based methods to improve the life of people suffering from substance use disorders and to divert people from ever getting to a problem stage.
Programs had little expectation or the capability to independently monitor their clients' recovery outcomes or the effects of prevention programs. Now, that is the norm. We assess and monitor programs, especially ones who receive state or federal funding, using objective outcomes. In Iowa, we can say "Approximately, half of those who go to treatment maintain sobriety over a six-month period." There is a side benefit to this monitoring that is actually

extremely important. People who went through a treatment center or program typically had little public voice about their experiences. The monitoring we have done over the last 15 years here at the