The World Health Organization Substance Abuse Instrument for Mapping Services

Abstract

This paper describes the rationale for and development of the World Health Organization Substance Abuse Instrument for the Mapping of Services (WHO-SAIMS), a new procedure for assessing, monitoring, and evaluating treatment systems for substance use disorders in all UN Member States. The paper begins with a description of the information needed to understand the structure and function of drug and alcohol service systems. A conceptual model is presented to show how service system policies and characteristics impact on population health. Five kinds of research are then reviewed to suggest how the nature and impact of alcohol and drug services can be evaluated: 1) systems mapping studies; 2) assessments of service needs; 3) monitoring system development; 4) analysis of system performance; and 5) comparative studies. Although the WHO-SAIMS has a primarily descriptive function that will allow for gaps in service delivery and areas for system improvement to be identified, it can also be used for monitoring and process evaluation to allow countries to identify changes in the system over time and to assess the extent to which system improvement strategies have been implemented.