Suvi Virtanen has been awarded a postdoctoral fellowship of 2,4 million SEK by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Forte).
In her project “Evaluating effectiveness of substance misuse and addiction treatment in correctional services in Sweden” she will combine the use of nationwide register data with quasi-experimental methods to evaluate whether currently offered substance abuse treatments are effective in reducing recidivism, overdoses, and mortality. One of the project aims is to investigate the effectiveness of “contract treatment” (kontraktsvård), which is offered as an alternative sanction to prison for individuals whose committed crime was closely linked with substance misuse problems.