Washington, DC - While more than 80 million Americans now have access to Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), little current scientific research exists to determine how well these employer-paid benefits are serving workers with alcohol problems, according to a new educational primer released today (September 26) by Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol Problems (ESAP).

"Government surveys indicate that just one percent of individuals being treated for alcohol problems have been referred by their employer or an EAP, a tiny fraction of the 6 million Americans between the ages of 18 to 49 who have alcohol use disorders and who work full time," said Eric Goplerud, ESAP executive director. "Today's EAPs have expanded well beyond their early focus on alcohol problems in the workplace. That so few workers and families with alcohol problems get help through their EAPs raises the question of whether or not today's EAPs are doing as good a job of dealing with alcohol problems in the workplace as they once did."

EAPs are generally offered to employees by larger businesses. In one of the last nationwide studies of EAPs, conducted during the late 1980s with funding from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, researchers learned that nearly 80 percent of workers with alcohol problems who had been referred to an EAP were back on the job and performing satisfactorily a year later. Since then, advances in alcohol treatment research suggest that EAPs can make an even more powerful contribution to successful outcomes through early identification, assessment and follow-up services. Ensuring Solutions calls upon the scientific community to undertake greater study of the impact of EAPS on alcohol problems.

"Employers are uniquely positioned to motivate workers with alcohol problems to seek treatment by using poor job performance to break through their denial," continued Goplerud. "Effective EAPs can refer these workers to appropriate treatment and help them avoid relapse. Unfortunately, many employee assistance professionals may not have sufficient training in addictions to recognize that workers who seek EAP services for stress or emotional reasons may have an underlying alcohol problem."

Employee Assistance Programs: Workplace Opportunities for Intervening in Alcohol Problems, developed in consultation with Paul Roman, PhD, traces the history of EAPs from their roots in occupational alcoholism programs and discusses how the "broad brush" approach adopted in the 1970s increased their acceptance. It also examines how market forces have changed EAPs and encouraged managed behavioral health care organizations to combine both EAP and treatment services in the packages they sell to employers.

"Integrated EAPs have enormous potential to intervene earlier in the continuum of alcohol problems if they conduct alcohol screenings and provide brief intervention services for employees who have had problems as a result of their drinking but are not yet dependent on alcohol," added Goplerud. "These services can reduce the impact of alcohol problems in terms of productivity and health care utilization, and they offer both the employer and the managed behavioral healthcare organization financial savings by helping to prevent the need for formal treatment."

Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol Problems based Employee Assistance Programs: Workplace Opportunities for Intervening in Alcohol Problems on a review of research literature and interviews with academic researchers and employee assistance professionals. The fifth in a series of educational primers developed by Ensuring Solutions to inform business leaders and policymakers about a drug problem that directly affects an estimated 14 million Americans as well as their families, workplaces and communities, it is available online at www.ensuringsolutions.org.