The effects of community structure on during-treatment outcomes of methadone maintenance programs

This study examines the effects of selected community factors on aggregated during-treatment outcomes of methadone maintenance programs in 27 cities. The basic premise of the study is that methadone maintenance (MM) program outcomes on such measures as drug use, criminality, and productive activities are significantly affected by factors in the community environment. The results indicate that community measures are associated with outcomes on drug use (opiate and nonopiate), productive activities, and criminality but not with alcohol use. Another finding is that global measures such as overall quality of life of a community are not clearly related to outcomes of MM programs. It is also found that property crime rates, which are frequently used as indicators of prevalence of drug use, are not related to during-treatment program outcomes of drug use and criminality.