A Review of Gender Differences among Substance Abusers

This chapter provides a review of literature on gender differences among substance abusers. In the past two decades there has been an increasing recognition of the need to identify gender differences in the etiology of drug use, drug treatment needs, the drug treatment process, and the recovery process. While still comprising a much smaller portion of persons imprisoned, substance-abusing women are being incarcerated at increasingly higher rates than men. Because most treatment programs were originally developed for men, researchers have, in recent years, more frequently cited the need to understand how women use treatment services, to identify how treatment needs of women differ from those of men, and to assess how effective the various substance abuse treatment approaches are for women. Our report attempts to begin addressing some of the gaps in the literature, particularly within criminal justice settings, on the use of treatment services by women and treatment effectiveness for women.