Addiction Treatment Experience among a Cohort of Street-Involved Youths and Young Adults

Very little is known about the accessibility and potential barriers to addiction treatment among street youths and young adults. We sought to examine the prevalence and correlates of enrollment in addiction treatment among a cohort of street-involved youths and young adults in Vancouver, Canada. Street-involved youths and young adults who use illicit drugs were enrolled in a prospective cohort study known as the At Risk Youth Study (ARYS). We examined the prevalence of addiction treatment experience and identified the factors associated with this outcome using multivariate logistic regression. Among 478 participants, 243 (50.8%) had previously been enrolled in some form of addiction treatment program. In multivariate analysis, history of overdose, previous incarceration, crack use, cocaine use, and history of injection drug use were positively and independently associated with enrollment in addiction treatment. These findings may assist health authorities in identifying and assisting youths who may have barriers to accessing treatment, and further suggest that efforts may be needed to scale up addiction treatment programming for high-risk youths and young adults.