Refinement of Recovery Utility Weight Estimation from the National Recovery Survey

As the evidence base for peer-driven substance use and recovery interventions grows, the need for economic evaluations of these interventions is pressing but cannot be adequately met without refining a key parameter: an estimate of recovery utility. The pilot project aims to create a general estimate of recovery utility from the National Recovery Survey (NRS; Kelly et al., 2018), a nationally-representative sample of U.S. adults in recovery. The quality-of-life measure used in the NRS (EUROHIS-QOL; Schmidt et al., 2006) is not readily compatible with utility estimation. Thus, research is required to develop a mapping dataset, identify potential methods for conversion to utility weights, test candidate methods, and develop a pilot estimate of general recovery utility as a basis for future work to generate greater accuracy in recovery utility estimation.

Sierra Castedo de Martell is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Justice-Involved and Emerging Adult Populations (JEAP) Initiative and Lighthouse Institute at Chestnut Health Systems. She is a person in long-term recovery from substance use disorder and her research focuses on economic evaluations of peer-driven substance use interventions, making economic evaluation information more accessible, and peer workforce development. She previously served as the director of a collegiate recovery program and serves as a board member for a local recovery community organization. She earned her PhD in public health behavioral sciences with a minor in health economics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health in 2023.