Online Program

317748
Racial/ethnic differences in the use of care among people with co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorder


Monday, November 2, 2015

Eunji Nam, MA, School of Social Welfare, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Backgrounds: It is not clear whether racial/ethnic differences are maintained for people with co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorder (COD) due to the comorbidity. Previous studies have limitations in that they only compared Blacks and Whites and paid little attention to receiving both mental health (MH) and substance abuse (SA) care. 

Methods: 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) was used. Samples consisted of 1,660 White, Black, and Latino US adults indicated to have both mental illness and substance use disorder. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was mainly used to examine the racial/ethnic differences in four patterns of service use: both MH and SA, MH only, SU only, and no care. 

Findings: The odds of receiving both MH and SA care for Black (OR=.44, CI=.24-.81, p=.007) and Latino (OR=.49, CI=.29-.83, p=.008) people with COD were statistically significantly lower than that of White people with COD. This pattern was consistent with the odds of receiving mental health care only (Blacks: OR=.41, CI=.28-.60, p<.001; Latinos: OR=.64, CI=.47-85, p=.003). However, for substance abuse care pattern, the results were different. The odds of receiving substance abuse care only for Blacks was 0.47 times the odds for Whites (OR=.47, CI=.23-.98, p=.042). But, there was no statistically significant difference in the receipt of substance abuse care only between White and Latino people (OR=.85, CI=.50-1.46, p=.567). 

Implications: Policy and practice suggestions were made for mental health and substance abuse care setting, respectively.

Learning Areas:

Provision of health care to the public
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Describe racial/ethnic differences in receiving both mental health and substance abuse care among people with co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorder.

Keyword(s): Health Disparities/Inequities, Health Care Access

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am third year social work doctoral student at KU. I have been trained using quantitative methods enough to conduct the current research. My interests include service and intervention for people with co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse. I have been analyzed IDDT intervention for 3 years.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.