Why Research Should Pay Attention to Effects of Marketization of Addiction Treatment Systems

Researchers generally assume that addiction treatment systems can be viewed as entities and planned with the citizens' best interests in mind. We argue that another steering principle, the market logic, has permeated many Western World treatment systems but is neglected in research. We demonstrate how it may affect system-level planning, service provision, and the service users.

We draw on an ongoing Swedish study, with some Nordic references, using several data sources: (1) public statistics on treatment expenditures and purchases; (2) interviews with service users (n = 36) and their service providers (n = 23) on different market features; (3) an observation of a large public procurement process concluding framework agreements based on competitive tendering; (4) interviews with officials involved with steering of the system and procurement (n = 16); (5) a workshop on procurement in the Nordic countries (n = 11 participants); and (6) 77 interviews with professionals, managers, and elected representatives.

We outline seven propositions that call for further research attention: public procurement, as regulated in the European Union, is not suitable for addiction treatment; marketization challenges democracy, equity, needs assessment, and treatment planning; marketization causes new accountability problems and idle monitoring; marketization causes fragmentation and obstructs coordination and continuity of care; marketization causes unification of services and favors big bureaucratically sophisticated providers; treatment professionals' values are downplayed when a mistrust-based market logic replaces a trust- and needs-based logic; and marketization marginalizes treatment professionals and service users by limiting discretion.

Findings point toward the importance of acknowledging and mitigating market principles in treatment systems to safeguard needs assessments and planning that serve the interests of the service users and the public.