Race, Ethnicity, and Language Disparities in Alcohol and Drug Screening and Medication Treatment

In a nationally representative network of community health centers serving diverse patients, are there differences in evidence-based alcohol and drug screening and prescribing for addiction treatment by race, ethnicity, and language preference?In this cohort study of health records for 2 million US adults across 1300 clinics, 40% ever had alcohol and drug screening completed. While Latino patients preferring Spanish were most likely to have received screening, all patients from minoritized racial and ethnic groups (including Latino patients with both Spanish or English language preference) had significantly lower odds of prescribed medications for addiction compared with non-Hispanic White patients.These results suggest that increasing substance use screening and addressing the emerging treatment inequity should be prioritized.

Corresponding Author: Brian Chan, MD, MPH, Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine chanbri@ohsu.edu).

Link to the article in your story

We encourage you to link out to this article in your story using the link below. It includes an access token that will give free access to the article for your readers up to one year after publication. (The link will be live after the article publishes and embargo is lifted.)

Please see the article for additional information, including full author list, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

Need more information? Contact us.