Racial discrimination in medical care settings and opioid pain reliever misuse in a U.S. cohort: 1992 to 2015.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In the United States whites are more likely to misuse opioid pain relievers (OPRs) than blacks, and blacks are less likely to be prescribed OPRs than whites. Our objective is to determine whether racial discrimination in medical settings is protective for blacks against OPR misuse, thus mediating the black-white disparities in OPR misuse.

Methods

We used data from 3528 black and white adults in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study, an ongoing multi-site cohort. We employ causal mediation methods, with race (black vs white) as the exposure, lifetime discrimination in medical settings prior to year 2000 as the mediator, and OPR misuse after 2000 as the outcome.

Results

We found black participants were more likely to report discr

SUBMITTER: Swift SL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6924655 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature