More than $116 million of West Virginia’s healthcare system budget was consumed to address drug and alcohol related diseases in 2007, according to a new reportreleased this month by the WV Partnership to Promote Community Well-Being. The report also projects the cost could increase to more than $201 million by 2017.
“The Financial Burden of Substance Abuse in West Virginia: The Healthcare System” examines the impact of drug and alcohol use on West Virginia’s healthcare sector, which includes hospitals, prescription providers, substance abuse treatment centers, prevention providers, behavioral health providers, and federally qualified health centers.
It is the second in a series of reports examining the cost of drug and alcohol use in WV. A comprehensive report, incorporating estimates from criminal justice, health care, education, child welfare, and workforce systems, will be produced at the end of the project.
The reports are part of a larger Family Funding Study project, which is funded with U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Block Grant money administered by the WV Division of Criminal Justice (DCJS).
“Now is the time to invest sufficient state monies in a unified, carefully planned comprehensive approach to the problem in order to implement strategies that are proven effective in combating substance abuse,” said Mike Lacy, Chair of the WV Partnership to Promote Community Well-Being and Director of Probation Services for the WV Supreme Court of Appeals.
“Some might say we can’t afford to allocate new state funds to the problems of substance abuse. The fact is we can’t afford not to,” said Lacy.”
The WV Partnership to Promote Community Well-Being is WV’s Governor-appointed substance abuse prevention planning body. The Governor and the WV Partnership will release their comprehensive, strategic plan for addressing substance abuse at a drug summit next month.
This latest funding study report was produced by the WV Partnership to Promote Community Well-Being’s staff at the WV Prevention Resource Center. The WVPRC is an affiliate of Marshall University and funded through various grants including a federal Substance Abuse Prevention & Treatment Block Grant administered through the WV DHHR's Bureau
for Behavioral Health and Health Facilities and a federal Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant and the Governor’s Drug Free WV Grants administered through the WV Division of Criminal Justice Services.
