Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS)

Analyses of substance use treatment episodes in Washington State are derived from the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS), a nationally-representative data source that collects information on substance abuse admissions and discharges from all “facilities that are licensed or certified by a state substance abuse agency to provide substance abuse treatment.”

It consists of two unlinked sister datasets, the TEDS-A (Admissions) and the TEDS-D (Discharges). The TEDS-A contains specifics about the substance abuse problem that led to treatment (e.g. substance, route of administration, duration of use, source of referral), demographic and geographic information, information about comorbid substance use/abuse and psychiatric conditions, and data about anticipated sources of reimbursement for treatment. The TEDS-D contains the same information, but with additional variables pertaining to the length of treatment, type of treatment at discharge, and reason for discharge.

All TEDS counts are by treatment episode, not by person. Each record in the TEDS represents a single admission episode, not a single individual. If the same individual entered treatment multiple times in a calendar year, they would be represented in the TEDS for that year three times, not one.

The TEDS includes many treatment episodes, but not all. The TEDS compiles data collected by states from their publicly funded, state-licensed or certified substance abuse treatment centers. Centers that fall outside those categories will not be represented. It also does not include data from early intervention programs. For full information on what types of treatment facilities are and are not included in the TEDS, please consult the TEDS-A or TEDS-D codebooks, available online at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive.

The TEDS only includes (some) people who accessed treatment. By their nature, treatment episodes reported in the TEDS include only those who accessed treatment. They do not tell us how many people tried to get treatment and failed, or how many people who could benefit from treatment are in an area.

TEDS records are often missing data, and we do not know if that data is missing at random. Because the TEDS data is collected for administrative purposes and relies on self-report, some variables are missing for some admissions. Proportions shown in this project’s publications exclude missing data. However, we do not know whether this data is missing completely at random, and care should be taken in interpreting these estimates.

For more information about the TEDS, visit datafiles.samhsa.gov.

National Survey on Substance Abuse Treatment Services

Analyses of Washington State substance abuse treatment programs and facilities are based on the 2017 National Survey on Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS). The N-SSATS collects self-reported information from substance abuse treatment facilities and programs about their location, facility features, and services offered. It is a voluntary survey and some Washington facilities may not have responded.

The N-SSATS is available for free public download from datafiles.samhsa.gov. For more information about the N-SSATS, visit datafiles.samhsa.gov.

Help

States use different reporting methods, have different populations, and use different funding and policy approaches. When comparing Washington to other states, we need to remember that there are many factors that differ among states.

For a theoretical example, if we found that Washington had proportionately more opioid treatment episodes for female clients than California did, we cannot assume that a.) Washington women have more of an opioid problem than Californian women, nor can we assume that b.) Washington and California women are similarly likely to have opioid problems but Washington is better at getting that population into treatment than California. It may be that Washington has a special grant for treatment outreach to women, that Washington has one or more treatment facilities that only treats women, that Washington had a female-focused public awareness campaign about opioid addiction in women, or a thousand other potential factors. Without further investigation, we can only say that a difference was observed.

For help in interpreting materials from the Washington MAT Map, or if you have a specific research question in your community that you think we could help answer, please contact liz.wood@wsu.edu.