Robustness of estimated access to opioid use disorder treatment providers in rural vs. urban areas of the United States.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Effective, evidence-based treatments for opioid use disorder are not equally accessible to Americans. Recent studies have found urban/rural disparities in the driving times to the nearest opioid treatment providers. These disparities may be even worse than currently reported in the literature because patients may not be able to obtain appointments with their nearest provider. We examine the robustness of the opioid treatment infrastructure by estimating how driving times to treatment change as provider availability decreases.

Methods

We used public data from the federal government to estimate the driving time from each census tract centroid to the nearest 15 treatment providers. We summarized the median and interquartile range of driving times to increasingly dist

SUBMITTER: Kiang MV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8595811 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature