Under the Influence? Drugs and the American Work Force (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Summary: Conclusions and Recommendations
Summary: Conclusions and Recommendations
Pages 1-14
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work force, the impact of such use on job-related behavior, and the effectiveness of workplace drug intervention programs. This emphasis on workplace productivity rather than social consequences affects the purpose, methods, and evaluation criteria used in this report, just as it often affects researchers investigating these issues.
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Work force alcohol and other drug use is the use of those substances by any work force member, whether the use occurs on or off the job, so long as the use has potential workplace effects. Consequently, issues concerning hangover or residual effects of alcohol and other drugs taken when not at work, as well as correlates of individual alcohol and other drug use and work force participation, are all relevant.
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Recommendation: Research is still needed to sort out the relative impact of the work environment and individual traits on workers' alcohol and other drug use. This research should test realistic theories involving such potential critical variables as drug availability,
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As a first step, the National Household Surveys on Drug Abuse should be modified to provide specific information about job characteristics, job-related behaviors, and alcohol and other drug use at work. Ultimately a national panel survey devoted to this topic should be instituted.
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Although the workplace offers a unique opportunity to obtain leverage on the alcohol and other drug problems of some users, there are many serious alcohol and other drug abusers who are not regularly employed, if they are employed at all. In 1990, approximately 7 percent of workers reported having used an illicit drug and approximately 6 percent reported having drunk heavily in the past month, compared with 14 percent and 6 percent, respectively, for the unemployed.
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. The use of alcohol and other drugs away from the work site, including prescription drugs and over-the-counter medication, may have detrimental effects during work, especially for those in safety-sensitive positions.
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Less consistent evidence exists linking alcohol and other drug use to other negative work behaviors, although the current research base is insufficient to support firm conclusions. When associations between alcohol and other drug use and counterproductive workplace behavior are found, relationships are most often of moderate or low strength even when they are statistically significant.
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Strict regulation need not, however, mean bureaucratic inflexibility that pointlessly increases costs or retards progress, nor should it interfere with research designed to improve current urine testing procedures or efforts to develop reliable tests using specimens other than urine. Recommendation: Within a regime of strict quality control, allowances should be made for variations in procedures so long as they do not compromise standards and they do reflect professional judgments of laboratory directors and forensic toxicologists about what is required to meet individual program needs.
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Recommendation: No positive drug test result should be reported for a job applicant until a positive screening test has been confirmed by GC/MS technology. If a positive test result is reported by the laboratory, the applicant should be properly informed and should have an opportunity to challenge such results, including access to a medical review officer or other qualified individual to assist in the interpretation of positive results, before the information is given to those who will make the hiring decision.
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· Integrity testing and personality profiles do not provide accurate measures of individual alcohol and other drug use and have not been adequately evaluated as predictors or proxy measures of use. Using these tests to aid in employment decisions involves a significant risk of falsely identifying some individuals as users and missing others who actually use drugs.
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Organizations that conduct their own drug studies can, by encouraging their researchers to publish in professional journals, enhance quality control and contribute to a knowledge base that will enable them to deal more effectively with future alcohol and other drug problems. · Different objectives have been suggested for work site drug testing and diverse alcohol and other drug intervention programs.
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Recommendation: In light of the relatively low rates of alcohol and other drug abuse among the work force (see Chapter 3) , the moderate predictive validity of testing programs (see Chapter 7)
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The most powerful methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of workplace alcohol and other drug intervention programs is the randomized field experiment. The implementation of new work site alcohol and other drug intervention programs or significant changes in existing programs pro Ode propitious occasions for exper~menta assessment.
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i992 A developmental psychopathology model of drug abuse vulnerability.
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