Opioid Use and Criminal Justice: Intervening to Improve the Outcomes of Women

Summary

Opioid-related overdose deaths and incarceration rates have skyrocketed and have disproportionately affected women. Despite having a higher burden of substance use disorders and HIV/AIDS than criminal justice-involved (CJI) men, CJI women are less likely to have access to substance use and HIV treatment. The planned research aims to improve how women in the criminal justice system connect to and stay in drug treatment. This will be done by creating and putting into practice a well-researched program specifically designed for women, considering their experiences with trauma. The program incorporates several best practices in substance use treatment such as the use of Certified Peer Recovery Specialists (CRS) as needed social support, assisting women who do not have stable housing in finding housing, overdose response training, and reducing known barriers to women by assisting with transportation and childcare. In addition, half of the women will be randomly selected to participate in a 12-session trauma support group led by CRS which uses the evidence-based curriculum, Beyond Trauma, which was specifically designed for women who use drugs. The aforementioned components are rarely offered in tandem with substance use treatment, and as such, this research is assessing if having this comprehensive program is linked with better substance use and social outcomes. The overall goal is to reduce the problem of opioid addiction and overdoses among women who have recently been involved in the criminal justice system and to reduce the barriers to opioid addiction treatment.

Conditions

• Opioid Use Disorder

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Trauma-informed case management for women who use drugs

This intervention assesses the adequacy in which components of the gender-specific and trauma-informed intervention function together using a sample of 50 community-recruited CJI women who use opioids illicitly.

BEHAVIORAL

CRS Only Intervention

This intervention assesses the adequacy in which components of the gender-specific case management by certified peer recovery specialists function together using a sample of 50 community-recruited CJI women who use opioids illicitly.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

  collaborator NIH

• Abenaa Jones, Ph.D.

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Abenaa Jones, Ph.D. · Penn State University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-11-13

Primary Completion

2025-08-12

Completion

2025-08-12

Countries

• United States

Study Locations