1. Description of the Uniform Facility Data Set Survey

Introduction

This report presents tabular information and highlights from the 1999 Uniform Facility Data Set (UFDS) survey, conducted between October 1999 and April 2000, with a reference date of October 1, 1999. It was the 23rd in a series of national surveys designed to collect data on the location, characteristics, and use of alcohol and drug abuse treatment facilities and services throughout the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and other U.S. jurisdictions.(1) The Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), plans and directs the UFDS survey.

The UFDS survey is designed to collect information from all facilities (2) in the United States, both public and private, that provide substance abuse treatment. UFDS provides the mechanism for quantifying the dynamic character and composition of the United States substance abuse treatment delivery system. The UFDS objectives are:


	•	to assist SAMHSA and State and local governments in assessing the nature and extent of services provided in State-supported and other treatment facilities, and in forecasting treatment resource requirements;


	•	to update SAMHSA’s Inventory of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (I-SATS) of all known drug and alcohol abuse treatment facilities;


	•	to analyze general treatment services trends and to conduct comparative analyses for the nation, regions, and States;


	•	to generate the National Directory of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Treatment Programs, a compendium of facilities approved by State substance abuse agencies for the provision of substance abuse treatment; and


	•	to update the information in SAMHSA’s Substance Abuse Treatment Facility Locator, a searchable database of facilities approved by State substance abuse agencies for the provision of substance abuse treatment, available on the Internet at:

http://findtreatment.samhsa.gov

1) The jurisdictions include the territories of American Samoa and Guam, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Palau, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands of the United States.

2) In this report, entities responding to UFDS are referred to as “facilities.” This designation is consistent with the title of the survey, although, as discussed later in the report, a “facility” may be a program-level, clinic-level, or multi-site respondent.