NB24-10: Opioid Response Services by Race and Placed-based Economic Indicators

Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is rising overall in the US, with nearly 300,000 Medicare enrolled SSDI beneficiaries diagnosed with OUD in 2020 (Chronic Conditions Warehouse 2022). The growing incidence of OUD and overdose deaths is uneven across the U.S. An earlier NBER Retirement and Disability Research Center working paper studied the variation in the State Opioid Response (SOR) Services delivered in one Mid-Atlantic state according to race, age, gender and place-based economic indicators from October 2020 through May 2022. In that work, Assefa et. al. (2023) found that the SOR services delivered per person in that state were equitable among Black and White residents. However, overdose death rates were rising faster for Black residents compared with White residents. This project will:
● Complete a literature review of relevant information regarding the quality of opioid use disorder treatment in state opioid response programs and related care settings.
● Clean and integrate quantitative data from each SOR provider to create service provider level estimates of total clients served by race, age, and gender, other client characteristics, and detailed type of services delivered, linked to economic indicators for each provider service area from the American Community Survey (ACS) data.
● Clean and analyze qualitative data from service provider reports to create, for each service provider, a list of barriers and opportunities to delivering SOR services.
● Analyze the combined quantitative and qualitative data on service providers linked to economic indicators to estimate differences in service type across service providers comparing Black-serving versus White-serving providers, and to understand correlates of these differences. This project will help SSA to understand unique barriers and opportunities beneficiaries with OUD face in regions with rapidly rising OUD.