Individuals in Low-Access Areas Less Likely to Stay in Treatment

Individuals are up to 50% less likely to stay in treatment for opioid use disorder when they live more than a mile from the nearest provider, according to a study by researchers at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center and Colleges of Public Health, Social Work, and Arts and Sciences.

The findings recently were published by the journal PLOS One.

The researchers identified “treatment deserts”—areas without nearby access to care—by analyzing 6,629 responses by emergency medical services in Franklin County, Ohio, from 2013 to 2017, comparing locations of the runs to the distance and time required to reach the nearest MAT provider. The median travel time for cars was 2 minutes; for public transportation, 17 minutes.

Black individuals who experienced an opioid-involved overdose on average were found to live closer to MAT providers than white individuals, however, “[e]ven though white individuals may live farther away, they may actually have a different set of resources that allow them the capacity to seek treatment,” study lead author Ayaz Hyder, an assistant professor in the OSU College of Public Health, told The Lantern.

Study co-author Gretchen Hammond, a community lecturer in the College of Social Work, said the findings could be used to inform decisions on the locations of new treatment centers to be built.

“[B]ased on upon this calculation of a treatment desert,” Hammond told The Lantern, “you could make a better decision where to put maybe your next treatment center, or your next location, or your next access point.”