Establishing Quality and Outcome Measures for Recovery Housing: A Tiered Approach Supporting Service Evolution

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Health Services Research
• Addiction Medicine

Background:

• Substance Use Disorder (SUD) is a major US public health crisis, with over 100,000 overdose deaths in 2021.
• Current SUD interventions primarily focus on medical stabilization, leading to low retention rates.
• Existing quality measures for SUD care are inadequate for community-based recovery support services, particularly recovery housing providers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the lack of applicable and feasible quality measures for recovery support services.
• To propose a matrix of quality measures tailored to the diverse capacities of recovery housing providers.
• To enhance equitable SUD treatment and recovery care by supporting service evolution.

Main Methods:

• Review of current SUD quality measures and their limitations for recovery support services.
• Analysis of the needs and capacities of recovery housing providers.
• Development of a proposed matrix of quality measures for recovery housing.

Main Results:

• Current SUD quality measures are not suitable for recovery housing providers.
• Recovery housing is widely supported and effective, yet lacks universal quality measures.
• A matrix of quality measures is proposed to accommodate varying provider capacities.

Conclusions:

• There is a critical need for expanded recovery support services addressing social determinants of health.
• A universal set of quality measures is needed for widespread adoption in recovery housing.
• The proposed quality measure matrix can support service evolution and improve equitable SUD recovery care.