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Race/ethnicity and quality indicators for outpatient treatment for substance use disorders
Author(s) -
Acevedo Andrea,
Garnick Deborah,
Ritter Grant,
Horgan Constance,
Lundgren Lena
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the american journal on addictions
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.997
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1521-0391
pISSN - 1055-0496
DOI - 10.1111/ajad.12256
Subject(s) - ethnic group , receipt , context (archaeology) , medicine , race (biology) , gerontology , psychology , clinical psychology , political science , geography , sociology , gender studies , archaeology , world wide web , computer science , law
Background and Objectives Initiation and engagement, performance measures that focus on the frequency and timely receipt of services in the early stages of substance use disorders (SUD) treatment, are useful tools for assessing treatment quality differences across racial/ethnic groups. The purpose of this study was to examine whether there are racial/ethnic disparities in these quality indicators and to explore whether predictors of treatment initiation and engagement differ by clients' race/ethnicity. Methods This study used administrative data from outpatient treatment facilities licensed by the state of Massachusetts that receive public funding. The sample consisted of 10,666 adult clients (76% White, 13% Latino, 11% Black) who began an outpatient treatment episode in 2006. Client data were linked with facility data from the National Survey on Substance Abuse Treatment Services. Multilevel regressions were used to examine racial/ethnic disparities and to explore whether predictors for initiation and engagement differed by client's race/ethnicity. Results We did not find evidence of racial/ethnic disparities in treatment initiation or engagement. However, we found that predictors of initiation and engagement differed by client's race/ethnicity. Conclusions and Scientific Significance Disparities may be context specific, and thus it is important that they be examined at state or local levels. Our results point to the importance of examining predictors of quality indicators separately by group to better understand and address the needs of diverse client populations. (Am J Addict 2015;24:523–531)