This five-year project, which began in 2007, is a collaborative project with the Boston Public Health Commission’s (BPHC) Bureau of Addictions Prevention, Treatment and Recovery Support Services and an array of Boston-area health organizations. The Moving on to Recovery and Empowerment (MORE), an Intensive Outpatient Treatment (IOT) Program aims to reduce substance abuse and to reduce HIV infection and other diseases among African American and Latina women. The 300 women participating in the program in the Boston area receive intensive, high-quality, culturally sensitive treatment, tailored especially to women. This program ensures that women receive counseling and other treatments that are more intense and for a longer period than is typical for such programs.
Services related to prevention of HIV and other infectious diseases include comprehensive education about prevention, access to HIV Rapid Testing for women and their sexual/injection partners, referral for HIV/AIDS medical care and follow-up and related case management. Through the MORE program, participants have access to a wide spectrum of health and social services through the program’s collaboration with community based health organizations.
IUHR is also conducting an evaluation of this program to determine whether or not the project goals and intervention objectives were achieved and whether participation in the interventions resulted in the desired long-term outcomes for participants. IHUR researchers follow up with clients at various stages of treatment to determine how the program affected them. They also study the effectiveness of various components of the program and if certain characteristics particular to a client were associated with the level of program effectiveness. All aspects of the MORE program, including presentation of evaluation findings, are developed collaboratively through a workgroup that includes IUHR researchers, MORE clients, managers, and counselors.
