Unhealthy Alcohol Use Tools and Resources Guide

All tools and resources are categorized according to their broad use:

• Implementation of Medication-Assisted Treatment in Primary Care — Tools and resources used to implement medication-assisted treatment and medication-assisted therapy for unhealthy alcohol use in primary care settings.
• Implementation of Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment in Primary Care — Tools and resources used to implement screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment for unhealthy alcohol use in primary care settings.
• Training and Education About Medication-Assisted Treatment — Training opportunities and educational materials about medication-assisted treatment and medication-assisted therapy for primary care staff.
• Training and Education About Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment — Tools and resources for providing education and training about screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment for primary care staff.
• Unhealthy Alcohol Use Awareness and Education — Tools and resources that provide information and education to increase awareness and understanding about unhealthy alcohol use.

Users can further filter the tools and resources based on one or more of the following specific topics:

• Adolescents – those that include information related to managing unhealthy alcohol use specifically among the adolescent population.
• Alcohol Use Disorder — those that include information related to alcohol use disorder, a chronic relapsing brain disease characterized by compulsive alcohol use, loss of control over alcohol intake, and a negative emotional state when not using alcohol.
• Clinical Guidelines — those that offer evidence-based recommendations for clinicians about the care of patients.
• Co-Occurring Behavioral Health Disorders — those related to the screening and treatment of common comorbid mental health and substance use disorders.
• Co-Occurring Medical Conditions — those related to the screening and treatment of common comorbid medical conditions, such as risk for chronic diseases.
• Emergency Departments —those that were developed for emergency department settings and can be used in primary care.
• Health Information Technology & Telehealth — those related to information sharing, electronic health records, health information technology, and telehealth methods for screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment, medication-assisted treatment, and medication-assisted therapy services.
• Integrating Behavioral Health and Primary Care — those focused on primary care and behavioral health services integration, such as guidebooks, websites, and journal articles that offer strategies and considerations for primary care and behavioral health stakeholders to support successful service integration.
• Medication-Assisted Treatment — those that provide information about medication-assisted treatment and medication-assisted therapy for patients with alcohol use disorder, including the use of counseling and behavioral therapies and medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
• Medication Considerations – those that provide information or materials on the medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat alcohol use disorder.
• Patient Education – those that can improve patient knowledge by providing information and education about different topics, such as unhealthy alcohol use, SBIRT, and MAT.
• Patient Engagement — those that can improve patient engagement, including those that promote patient activation, motivation, cultural competency, health literacy, and communication.
• Payment & Reimbursement —those related to financial sustainability, financing policy, and reimbursement for medication-assisted treatment and medication-assisted therapy and screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment services.
• Practice Organization Implementation – those resources that include organization-level guidance for administrative and clinical leadership to consider as they implement and/or expand their SBIRT and MAT services.
• Pregnant/Post-Partum Women & Their Infants —those that are developed for or offer specific considerations for the care of pregnant or post-partum women and their infants.
• Primary Care — those focused on managing unhealthy alcohol use in primary care settings.
• Program Policies & Procedures – sample policies and procedures of MAT programs.
• Psychosocial Supports — those for counseling, peer support, recovery coaching, self-help groups, and recovery supports that address social determinants of health.
• Quality Improvement and Implementation Science — those that include improvement models, frameworks, and related tools to help promote quality improvement in primary care settings.
• Regulations & Recordkeeping — those that facilitate compliance with relevant laws, rules, and regulations of alcohol and other substance use disorder treatment services, including those from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
• Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) — those that help with implementation of screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment in primary care settings.
• Screening for Substance Use Disorders/Alcohol Use Disorder — those that include validated screening tools and information about how to screen patients for unhealthy alcohol use, including alcohol use disorder.
• Screening for Substance Use Disorders/Opioid Use Disorder — those that identify patients with or at risk for opioid use disorder or other substance use disorders (not including Alcohol Use Disorder) across a variety of settings and patient populations.
• Stigma — those that address and seek to change stigmatizing language and attitudes toward working with patients with alcohol and other substance use disorders and who receive treatment services.
• Unhealthy Alcohol Use — those providing information about unhealthy drinking, including risky or hazardous drinking, harmful drinking, alcohol dependence, and alcohol use disorder.
• Workforce Development — those designed to help the clinical workforce develop and strengthen knowledge and capabilities, such as manuals and guides, training programs and learning modules, and quick reference materials and tools.

Each tool or resource is further categorized by its format, or the way in which the information is packaged. An icon appears next to each tool’s entry in the collection to quickly identify its format. The format options within the collection include:

• Curriculum
• Fact Sheet/Brochure
• Guide
• In-person Training
• Instrument/Protocol
• Journal Article
• Other
• Patient Form
• Report/Paper/Issue Brief
• Toolkit
• Web-Based Course
• Webinar/Video
• Website

The tools and resources within the collection may be created for or useful to a variety of audiences and stakeholders, including:

• Behavioral Health Providers
• Communities
• Families
• Graduate Education
• Medical Providers
• Organizational Leadership
• Other Team Members
• Patients
• Policymakers
• Practice Facilitators/Quality Improvement Coaches
• Schools
• States

While many of the tools and resources are in the public domain, some may require purchase or permission to use. Each tool or resource is categorized by access and terms of use, as follows:

• Copyrighted, freely available — Tools are accessible without purchase but may be subject to restrictions for use and distribution.
• May require fee or membership — Tools are exclusively owned or rights are held by an individual or organization and may require purchase, membership, or an account to access.
• Public domain — Tools are available for public use without current copyright or licensing restrictions, primarily published by Federal, State, or local governments.