Racial/Ethnic and Gender Differences in Associations of Medication-Assisted Therapy and Reduced Opioid Use between Outpatient Treatment Admission and Discharge

George Pro, Jeff Utter, Jessica Cram, Julie Baldwin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

Medication-assisted therapy (MAT) for opioid use disorders is an effective treatment strategy. Racial/ethnic and gender disparities in MAT utilization have been documented, but less is known about disparities in MAT outcomes. We used the Treatment Episodes Dataset–Discharges (TEDS-D; 2015– 2017) to identify outpatient treatment episodes with heroin or illicit opioids indicated at admission (n = 232,547). We used multivariate logistic regression to model the association between MAT and a reduction in opioid use between treatment admission and discharge. We explored moderation by race/ethnicity and gender by including an interaction term. We identified a strong moderating effect of race/ethnicity and gender. American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) women demonstrated the strongest association between MAT (versus no MAT) and a reduction in opioid use (aOR = 6.05, 95% CI = 4.81– 7.61), while White men demonstrated the weakest association (aOR = 2.78, CI = 2.70– 2.87). Our findings could inform changes in clinical MAT settings that are based on harm reduction and the incremental transition from illicit opioids to medication-assistance among a diverse opioid use disorder population.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)186-194
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of Psychoactive Drugs
Volume52
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 14 2020

Keywords

  • Health disparities
  • medication-assisted therapy
  • opioids

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Medicine (miscellaneous)
  • General Psychology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Racial/Ethnic and Gender Differences in Associations of Medication-Assisted Therapy and Reduced Opioid Use between Outpatient Treatment Admission and Discharge'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this