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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Minorities -- and especially blacks -- are getting the short end of the stick when it comes to treatment for alcohol abuse.
A new study conducted by investigators from the RAND Corporation shows whites are significantly more likely than minorities to complete care for alcohol problems and also significantly more likely to get care in a residential treatment program where they can be closely monitored.
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We calculated that if African American patients were assigned to residential treatment at the same rate as white patients, the racial disparity in alcohol-treatment completion might decline by as much as 20 percent between African Americans and whites, study author Ricky N. Bluthenthal, Ph.D., was quoted as saying.
Researchers looked at discharge records for more than 10,500 people treated for alcohol problems in publicly funded programs in Los Angeles County. About 4,100 were black, about 3,300 were white, and about 3,100 were Hispanic.
Overall, minorities were less likely to complete the program than whites, though the disparity was greatest between blacks and whites. Blacks were also more likely to receive outpatient care than residential care even though they generally had more severe alcohol problems.
The study points to several implications for public health policy, suggests fellow investigator Laura A. Schmidt, Ph.D., an associate professor of health policy at the University of California, San Francisco. Chief among the implications is the need to offer more residential treatment programs to minorities.
Currently, about 60 percent of the care for alcohol problems provided in the U.S. is in outpatient settings and this figure will likely grow in the years to come, she was quoted as saying. Based on what this paper reports, we can expect to see a widening gap in completion rates between minorities and whites as more and more care is delivered in outpatient settings.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
SOURCE: Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, published online Oct. 24, 2007
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