A current re-examination of racial/ethnic disparities in the use of substance abuse treatment: Do disparities persist?

Objective: Racial/ethnic disparities in the use of substance abuse treatment services have been documented. The objective of this study was to re-examine if racial/ethnic disparities in the use of treatment still exist using current data collected post-implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Methods: Data were pooled from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health survey years 2015, 2016, and 2017. Analyses were limited to adult White, Black, and Latino participants who met DSM-IV criteria for a past year substance use disorder (n = 12,070). Hierarchical multivariate logistic regression models examined the role of race/ethnicity on past-year use of (1) any substance abuse treatment services and (2) specialty treatment. Important covariates included socio-demographics, problem severity, and perceived treatment need. A sub analysis was also conducted that was limited to participants who reported having health insurance to explore the role of insurance status on treatment utilization by race/ethnicity. Results: Findings showed that Latinos and Blacks significantly underutilized specialty treatment relative to Whites. These relationships were statistically significant after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, problem severity, and perceived treatment need. However, when analyses were limited to only those with health insurance, Black-White disparities became non-significant, while Latino-White disparities persisted. Conclusions: Findings highlight that Black-White and Latino-White disparities in the use of substance abuse treatment still persist. However, Black-White disparities may be limited to only those who are uninsured. Public health implications are discussed.