BMC Public Health 2008, 8:149 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/8/149 Table 2: Deprivation quintile of Drug (and Alcohol) Action Teams Drug (and Alcohol) Action Team Index of Multiple Deprivation score1 Deprivation quintile (1 = most deprived, 5 = least deprived) Liverpool Manchester Knowsley Salford Halton Blackpool Rochdale Blackburn St Helens Oldham Wirral Tameside Bolton Wigan Sefton Bury Lancashire Cumbria Trafford Warrington Stockport Cheshire 49.82 48.95 46.58 38.19 34.29 33.91 33.71 32.29 31.95 30.73 30.06 29.81 29.41 29.27 26.12 23.53 21.80 21.57 20.14 19.33 18.06 15.06 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 1 Source: North West Public Health Observatory, Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University referral (n = 26, 0.2%), client referred on (n = 555, 3.4%), client moved away from area (n = 103, 0.6%), client went to prison (n = 308, 1.9%), client died (n = 23, 0.1%), other outcome (n = 220, 1.3%), outcome not known (n = 153, 0.9%). The characteristics of those dropping out of treatment and those retained are displayed in Table 3. Bivariate analyses showed that drop out was significantly associated with seven variables (Table 4). Firstly, those who had recently been in contact with treatment were less likely to drop out than those who had not (odds ratio 0.84, 95% confidence interval 0.76 to 0.93). Secondly, the odds of drop out were significantly higher among residents of Cumbria and Lan- cashire (odds ratio 1.65, 95% confidence interval 1.43 to 1.90) and Greater Manchester (odds ratio 1.90, 95% con- fidence interval 1.68 to 2.16) than residents of Cheshire and Merseyside. For those people who were resident in areas categorised as being in deprivation quintiles two to five, the odds of drop out were significantly greater than the odds of drop out for those living in the most deprived areas (quintile one). The relationship between age and treatment outcome showed an inverse linear trend, with the odds of drop out decreasing with increasing age. With respect to the drug profile, the odds of drop out was sig- nificantly lower for individuals who were opiate users (odds ratio 0.79, 95% confidence interval 0.71 to 0.88), and for alcohol users (odds ratio 0.74, 95% confidence interval 0.59 to 0.91). The use of alcohol was recorded for 435 (4.4%) opiate users and 574 (9.8%) stimulant users. Only 150 individuals were recorded as using all three cat- egories of drugs, while 1654 were reported as not using any of these drugs (and were users of cannabis or benzo- diazepines for example). Finally, the odds of drop out var- ied according to ethnicity, with Asian drug users more likely to drop out than their white counterparts (odds ratio 1.97, 95% confidence interval 1.45 to 2.67). Other variables were not significantly associated with treatment outcome. Logistic regression analysis (Table 5) showed that drop out continued to be significantly more likely among Asian drug users compared to white drug users in multivariate analyses (adjusted odds ratio 1.52, 95% confidence inter- val 1.12 to 2.08). Drop out was more likely among those living in Cumbria and Lancashire (adjusted odds ratio 1.80, 95% confidence interval 1.51 to 2.15) and Greater Manchester (adjusted odds ratio 2.00, 95% confidence interval 1.74 to 2.29) than residents of Cheshire and Mer- seyside and among people living in the least deprived areas (adjusted odds ratio 2.92, 95% confidence interval 1.74 to 4.90). Drop out was significantly less likely among alcohol users (adjusted odds ratio 0.73, 95% confidence interval 0.59 to 0.91,). Age group was not significantly associated with drop out once deprivation quintile was included in the model. Page 5 of 11 (page number not for citation purposes)