Dr. Jane Maxwell, a researcher at the School’s Center for Social Work Research, has received funding from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) for a two-year exploratory project titled “Drinking, driving and drugs: Trajectories of DWI recidivism and how to intervene.” Dr. Lynn Wallisch is the co-investigator on the project. The team will partner with consultants from the Pacific Institute on Research and Evaluation.
The study will merge over 8 years of Texas driving record data and Texas treatment data to identify and evaluate the risk and protective factors for DWI/DUI recidivism among individuals who have ever received alcohol and/or drug treatment.
The study hypothesizes that several factors interact to predict the risk of recidivism: demographics, underlying severity of substance disorder, previous risky driving behaviors, intensity of substance treatment, and legal deterrents (e.g. interlocks, DWI education, etc.). The research team will disentangle these factors to create a predictive profile of who is most likely to recidivate and to determine the interventions that work best for people with different combinations of characteristics or backgrounds.