Interagency Work Group on Drinking and Drug Use in Women and Girls | NIAAA

In the 1990s, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), began sponsoring the Work Group on Women, Drinking, and Pregnancy, one of four work groups then supported by the Interagency Coordinating Committee on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (ICCFASD). In 2018, the Work Group changed its name to the Interagency Work Group on Drinking and Drug Use in Women and Girls (IWG).
 
Like its predecessor, IWG comprises representatives from multiple federal agency partners, academia, and health care provider organizations committed to improving access to high-quality alcohol prevention, treatment, and recovery services for women and girls.
 
Now, however, the vision and mission of IWG have been expanded to include access to mental health services and to services for all substance use disorders (SUDs), not only alcohol use disorder. Specifically, IWG envisions that in the near future all girls and women will have access to routine screening for mental health problems and disorders, alcohol misuse, and other substance misuse and SUDs, and to comprehensive and effective prevention, treatment, and recovery services for all mental health disorders and SUDs.
 
Members of IWG work collaboratively to develop and implement joint initiatives to improve the quantity, range, and quality of prevention, treatment, and recovery services for mental health and SUDs among women and girls across the lifespan. 
 

Previous activities of IWG

2022 National Conference on Alcohol and Other Substance Use in Women and Girls: Advances in Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery took place virtually October 20 and 21, 2022. The primary objectives of the conference included the following:

  • Disseminate findings from the latest research on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of harmful alcohol use and other harmful substance use among girls and women, including strategies to prevent HIV infection and progression and substance-exposed pregnancies
  • Develop a coalition of stakeholder organizations and researchers to devise a blueprint for a comprehensive public–private response to ameliorate harmful substance use among women and girls
  • Promote recovery and reduce stigma among girls and women living with problematic substance use, including those living with comorbidities, such as HIV/AIDS; and 
  • Discuss strategies to increase community engagement and participation in research on harmful substance use and multimorbidities in women and girls across the lifespan.

To view the Conference Day 1 presentations, watch the video on Youtube

To view the Conference Day 2 presentations, watch the video on Youtube