all seeing doctors quite frequently, including emergency visits and office visits with mental health and primary care providers,” Barnett said. “Yet, you’re still seeing this huge disparity.”
One potential explanation might be the disjointed nature of American health care, Barnett said. He noted that a recent study of the VA health system found much less disparity between whites and Blacks in treatment for opioid addiction – on the order of 42% versus 39%.
“To me, that suggests that maybe there’s something about the consistency and shared providers used by veterans that might be more of an equalizer than the very fragmented and segregated health care system that whites and Blacks engage with in other settings,” Barnett said.
Addressing the stigma
The stigma surrounding opioid addiction also could play a factor, Barnett notes.
“There’s just enormous amounts of stigma around opioid use disorder that make providers uninterested in treating these patients, and makes patients feel like they’re undeserving of treatment or that they don’t want to tell others about it,” Barnett adds.
The criminalization of addiction through America’s war on drugs added to that stigma, Khaikin points out. Blacks are less likely to trust doctors and seek care because there’s a real risk they’ll wind up behind bars.
“There is likely to be a criminal response to people of color who experience opioid use disorder,” Khaikin shares. “We are still very much treating people with substance use disorders with a criminal response, and that needs to change.”
The United States needs to dramatically rethink its approach to opioid use disorder, treating it as an illness rather than a crime or a weakness in character, Barnett says.
“Healthcare providers need to feel that addiction is very common and it’s something that they should be able to treat,” Barnett says. “It’s part of what it means to be a clinician. It’s not somebody else’s job.”
If you or someone you care about has an opioid use disorder, ask your doctor about available MAT options and about naloxone, an opioid antagonist that can reverse an opioid overdose.
- Many states allow you to get naloxone from a pharmacist without bringing in a prescription from a physician; go to NIDA’s Naloxone Resources webpage to learn more.
- To learn more about MAT, see the Treatment page with evidence-based options and future research directions for substance use treatment.
- To find a treatment provider, go to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator.