The study will develop a framework that links drinking patterns and a range of alcohol consequences to address questions about the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of evidence-based alcohol dependence treatment approaches and to explore whether some approaches could lead to better quality of life and reduction in alcohol-related costs in the long-term.
The study aims to: (1) develop a dynamic simulation model to link drinking patterns, long-term alcohol consequences, alcohol treatment effectiveness and cost-effectiveness, and (2) use the model to estimate the long-term costs and outcomes of the nine treatment arms examined in COMBINE under scenarios of recurrent treatment episodes throughout lifetime, and the impact of COMBINE therapies on different age, ethnic and gender cohorts, hence producing long-term cost-effectiveness estimates for different subgroups.  To date, no study has estimated the long-term cost-effectiveness of alcohol treatments. This project will address this research gap by applying established dynamic modeling methods which take into account the long-term range of effects of problematic alcohol consumption to achieve better estimates of the costs and benefits of alcohol treatment.