By Michael L. Denn..., October 13 2009
One of the great advantages of using the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs (GAIN) to assess individuals for substance abuse and mental health issues is the amount of high-quality data it collects that can be used to improve services and tailor treatment -- in this case, for adolescents.
Before the GAIN, there wasn't a lot of reliable data available about adolescent needs. Now there is. By June 30, 2009 there were over 1,127 state, county, agencies and grantees (including 271 from the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment [CSAT]) using the GAIN. This includes 271 CSAT grantees that have pooled their data and made it available for secondary analysis by local evaluators, researchers and students to help move the field forward with "practice-based evidence". Close to 50 different scientists from over three dozen agencies are using the data.
Want to use de-identified data for your own research? Here's an overview of the most recent CSAT data available and how to access it.
If you're interested in how others are using the GAIN data -- and what they're learning -- there's a regularly-updated bibliography of publications using data gathered from the GAIN on our website. (Email us if you review the list and see we've missed one.)
Copies of most of the articles are also available via the GAIN FTP site. (When prompted, enter username: Common; Password: public. Note: both are case-sensitive.)
Just to give you a sense of what's available, here's a list of 27 articles from the 12 months leadaing up to July 2009 using GAIN data -- primarily adolescent data.
Updated: February 08 2018