Screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment
SBIRT---Screening, Brief Intervention, Referral to Treatment---is a comprehensive, integrated, public health approach based on universal screenings which create awareness about America's number one preventable health issue---substance abuse.
SBIRT Colorado is dedicated to the delivery of early prevention for those who are non-dependent substance users, improving healthcare and changing lives.
SBIRT Colorado offers support for Coloradans concerned about their health.
- Alcohol and other drug use—at any level—affects a person’s health and general well-being.
- Standardized screenings serve as a powerful education tool for those who use alcohol and drugs.
- Research proves that screening within a healthcare setting can motivate people to change their habits.
- Early intervention can reduce risky alcohol and other drug use before it leads to addiction.
- The
benefits of this program extend well beyond the user—to the person’s
family and employer, to law enforcement and to the healthcare industry.
Why SBIRT is a critical prevention strategy
SBIRT shifts
the emphasis to alcohol and drug users whom the traditional system has largely
ignored—those who consume more than the medically accepted limits but are not yet dependent. While most of the attention given to alcohol and drug
issues has been focused on alcohol and illicit drug users who meet the clinical
criteria for substance dependence, risky users incur more adverse consequences
and costs at the population level. Misuse of alcohol and drugs costs the American economy over
$190 billion annually in lost productivity, injuries, disease, law enforcement
and criminal justice.
Even if they are not dependent on alcohol, people who drink above the recommended guidelines—up to one drink per day for women and up to two drinks per day for men—face a number of health risks. A risky drinker is someone who is not dependent on alcohol, but who has a drinking pattern that can lead to a variety of health consequences, to alcohol-related traffic and other accidents and alcohol-involved violence. Risky drinkers, though individually less likely to cause alcohol-related problems than those who are alcohol-dependent, make up a much greater portion of the general population; thus the more harm is caused by the population of risky drinkers. SBIRT provides the opportunity to intervene with this group to prevent serious consequences.
Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2006) Results from the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health:National findings Rockville (MD): Office of Applied Studies
